"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [8]

CHAPTER FIVE: A VICIOUS CIRCLE OF LIES AND FEARS [continued]

The Fear of Vanishing

Anzulovic begins this section with this important observation:

"The Serbs' aggressiveness inspired fear, which was a source of their aggressiveness. This fear reflected the insecurity of a people dominated by a foreign civilization for five centuries, who enjoyed their own full sovereign nation-state for only forty years between the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and the entry into the ill-fated Yugoslav union in 1918."

The Serb fear of being controlled by an "other", it must be remembered, is rooted in actual historical experience even if contemporary forms of this paranoia are often irrational. There is nothing more pathetic than a self-pitying bully, but Serb nationalist distrust of foreign control was not created out of whole cloth.

This section discusses reactions among Serb intellectuals and academics to such events as the downfall of Rankovic and the decentralization of the 1974 Constitution. Anzulovic notes that the "fear of Serbia's demise became a prominent theme of Serbian intellectual life in the 1980s." Acclaimed author Milorad Pavic repeatedly called for a pan-Orthodox alliance of "Byzantine" countries.

As the world becomes "smaller" through improved communications technologies and travel opportunities, people often fear losing their identities and cling to exaggerated differences between them and "others."

The Academy Memorandum

A brief discussion of the infamous 1986 "Memorandum" by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and of the role author and dissident Dobrica Cosic played in this intellectual validation of nationalist hysteria.

The Church Identifies the Devils

This section is a relatively extended consideration of the role the Serbian Orthodox Church has played in developing and disseminating the myths that drive and reinforce the worst aspects of Serbian nationalism. The anti-Catholic, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic nature of the church is discussed, as is its tendency to support autocratic rulers and accept sinister conspiracy theories. The Serbian Church often takes the lead in propagating the line that Serbia is and has been for five centuries the bulwark valiantly defending Europe from Islam, even as it disparages the non-Orthodox, non-Byzantine nature of the Europe Serbs allegedly are defending.

The traditional rejection of ecumenical dialog and cooperation by the Church has been articulated and defended by the most prominent theologians of the 20th Century church. The tendency of Serbian nationalists to hear nothing but their own complaints and to see nothing but their own grievances has been strongly reinforced by a national church which gives holy sanction to xenophobia, bigotry, and paranoia.

"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [7]

CHAPTER FIVE: A VICIOUS CIRCLE OF LIES AND FEARS

Fictional Data and Real Hatreds

The previous chapter covered the revived Serbian Kingdom, and pre-Communist Yugoslavia. This chapter picks up the story from there, and begins with this paragraph:

"Yugoslavia would have been less susceptible to violent disintegration if, at the end of World War II, there had been a reconciliation between the nations and factions that had fought one another. All of them, and especially the two most guilty ones, Croats and Serbs, should have admitted the mistakes and crimes committed since they entered the Yugoslav union and taken the steps necessary to prevent another conflict in the future. The enormity of the crimes committed by various parties made such action urgent. The reconciliation of France and Germany was a good model, but it could not be followed because one basic condition was missing: freedom, including the very important freedom of information."

I could not have said it better myself; this concise observation serves as an effective rebuttal to the "Tito was the only guy who could keep the hatreds in Yugoslavia in check" revisionists.

Much of this section is concerned with numbers--specifically, different estimates of the total number of Yugoslav war dead from World War II as well as the casualties for each individual national and ethnic group. The government, for years, continued to maintain the lie that 1.7 million Yugoslavs had perished in the war, a number that was based on shoddy demographics and which continued to be the official line long after independent analysis and study refuted this high number. In fact, the government itself had produced a comprehensive list of war victims (not including victims of the Partisans, since the list was for the West German government in regards to a reparations settlement) from 1964-1966; the total number was just below 600,000. Yet official history stuck with the obviously inflated 1.7 million figure.

Two independent Yugoslavs--Montenegrin Serb Bogoljub Kocovic in 1985, and Croat Vladimir Zerjavic in 1989--separately came up with nearly identical figures of just slightly over 1 million total war victims. The fact that Kocovic, the Serb, actually came up with lower subtotals for Serbs killed in Croatia than the Croat Zerjavic was just one testimony to the impartiality both these men brought to their work.

One would think that the discrepancy between their data and the long-accepted official total would have dampened the use of competing statistics by nationalist parties; sadly, the result was instead that propagandists and demagogues from all ethnic groups laid claim to large numbers of these 700,000 "uncounted" phantom dead. Such activities were carried out by all ethnic groups, mostly being published overseas; however, the domination of the Federal government by Serbia meant that Serb nationalist claims were able to be widely disseminated.

While Tito was aware that this situation was threatening to Yugoslavia's stability, he was simply unwilling to consider the one real solution--total freedom of information. His death in 1980 loosened controls over publication, but this mostly opened the doors to competing nationalist propaganda and outright lies--before long, Serb academics and intellectuals were claiming there were well over a million Serbs killed at Jasenovac alone (the real number of Serb victims was probably around 50,000). Other researchers have validated Kocovic and Zerjavic, to no avail.

Another myth of the post-World War II was the demonization of the Roman Catholic Church, which was outside of the control of the Belgrade regime; the campaign against Cardinal Stepinac is the most infamous aspect of this extensive effort, which began in the immediate postwar period and never really ended. False stories of Church complicity with, and support for, the Ustashe and the NDH were projected onto the Croats as a whole, even though only a tiny minority of Croats supported the quisling regime. Catholicism was being portrayed as an implacable enemy of Orthodoxy, and Croatians as fundamentally fascist and anti-Serb in orientation.

Other hatreds being nurtured in the postwar era:

"Belgrade propagandists avoided mentioning such facts as carefully as they hid the extent of the Serbs' collaboration with the Nazi, including their participation in the Holocaust. Instead, they directed particular effort at portraying the Serbs as traditional friends and protectors of the Jews."

[He then quotes Philip J. Cohen, author of Serbia's Secret War, on the subject; I will be reviewing this book in the very near future.]

"...ethnic Albanians were always a major target of defamation."

"The fear of the "Muslim Threat" was also used in the effort to mobilize Serbs in a nationalist front.."

And so on. Anzulovic wisely concludes this section with this depressing summary:

"The falsehoods spread by the Belgrade3 propaganda machine did not benefit anybody. The intention to obtain higher war reparation payments by means of inflated numbers of Yugoslav war victims failed; the tensions among various Yugoslav nationalities, caused by this and other lies, made life in the common state more difficult and contributed to its violent disintegration."

The Fear of Vanishing

"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [6]

CHAPTER FOUR: THE DILEMMAS OF MODERN SERBIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY

The Legacy of the Enlightenment and Romanticism

Anzulovic notes that the Orthodox countries of Europe developed differently than the Protestant and Catholic countries did, and that:

"In Orthodox countries, the equivalent of the Middle Ages--the period during which the church was the dominant bearer of cultural heritage--lasted until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries."

After that, ties with the West were established, but a concurrent anti-Western attitude

"nourished primarily by the Serbian Orthodox Church and by the old pagan-tribal ethos, did not disappear but has reasserted itself as a lasting and powerful current in Serbian culture. The elevation of an old pagan war god to the patron saint of the nation is the most conspicuous manifestation of the reaffirmation of tribal attitudes in the era of Westernization."

And, curiously, the Western ideology of Romanticism was an important aid to development of Serbian culture in this ultimately anti-Western direction. Romanticism was also the driving force behind the linguistic conception of Serbian nationhood, a notion articulated by Dositej Obradovic--a genuinely inclusive and somewhat cosmopolitan figure in the development of Serbian culture (second only to Saint Sava by some accounts) who contrasts favorably to his contemporary Njegos who was, of course, far less tolerant. Yet, Obradovic's legacy is tarnished by the expansionist rationale his linguistics-based approach to Serb national identity implied.

Language and Territory

This section is a very interesting consideration of the above-mentioned Obradovic thesis. Anzulovic states:

"Modern Pan-Serbism emerged as a result of the Romantic ideal that vernacular language is the main criterion for the identity of a nation, combined with the thesis that all stokavian dialects are Serbian."

The career of folklorist Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic is considered, as are the links between Western Romantic/folklorists like Goethe and Jakob Grimm. Anzulovic also contrasts the nineteenth century Pan-Serb ideal (an "assimilationist" approach) and the Croatian Illyrian Movement (an "integrative" approach). He traces the cause of Serbian inability to conceive of the legitimacy of other South Slavic nationalities to the millet system; under the Ottomans, the Serb "nation" existed within and mixed with other nations, yet, Serb clergy routinely referred to "Serb lands", meaning areas within the empire where Serbs lived, including areas of resettlement, rather than the borders of the medieval Serbian state. Croatians, and also Bosnians, on the other hand, maintained their conceptions of their states even though they lacked sovereignty. Serbs came to think of "Serbia" as wherever Serbs lived, or were buried. Combined with the sense that nearly all South Slavs were "really" Serbs, this was a very expansionist conception of any future Serb state.

THe Resurrection and International Recognition of a Pagan War God

A brief consideration of the history of the Serb pagan god Vid, and his modern resurrection into national mythology and even into the pantheon of the Serbian church. The modern phenomena of "Saint Vid's Day" is also considered, which partly explains why the Battle of Kosovo has taken on a mythic importance all out of proportion to its actual historical import.

The Bloody Rebirth of the Serbian State

A self-explanatory title; a brief synopsis of the early years of the newly independent Serbian kingdom.

The High Costs of Imperial Ambitions

A further history of Serbia, only now as the dominant nation/republic of Yugoslavia; the ongoing conflict between Serb/Montenegrin preference for centralized authority and hardline rule versus non-Serb (especially Croat and Slovene) preference for decentralization and less autocratic government. The use of harsh tactics against non-Serbs in territories conquered prior to the creation of Yugoslavia is also discussed.

This chapter is very readable, and Anzulovic manages to combine a disparate stew of information together into a coherent, concise, and comprehensive* examination of his topic. My review is rather bare-bones since he does cover a lot of information which should already be familiar to any reader of this blog; however, don't let that discourage you from reading his very fine book. Familiar facts and events often reveal new facets in his hands.

* No, I don't expect to impress anybody with my alliteration.

"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [5]

CHAPTER THREE: DINARIC HIGHLANDERS AND THEIR SONGS

The Violent Balkan Highlands

This section examines the violent nature of Dinaric mountain culture, which can be attributed to illiteracy, lack of central authority, general lawlessness, and a provincial, patriarchal culture deeply steeped in notions of a particular kind of personal honor and machismo. Anzulovic notes that this area was never completely conquered either by the Byzantines or the Ottomans, and that the pagan-tribal nature of highland society was never completely replaced by any of the monotheistic faiths which held the people's nominal loyalty--indeed, the priests were often illiterate, and were more likely to be deferential to the indigenous moral code rather than insisting on overt adherence to Church teachings.

These characteristics were common among highlanders of all faiths; among Orthodox highlanders, however, this endemic violence and attendant callousness towards suffering was enshrined in Prince Njegos' "The Mountain Wreath", thus spreading the bloody, vengeful, merciless code of the mountains to the more literate lowland culture.

The Prince-Bishop's "Song of Horror:

I have written elsewhere in this blog about "The Mountain Wreath", a masterpiece of Montenegrin poetry which celebrates the Christmas Eve massacre of Muslims by Christian fighters; I have written elsewhere about the poem and its glorification of God-sanctioned murder as well as the curious idea that the gratuitous shedding of Muslim blood is in itself a baptism, rather than a sin of which one must be cleansed in order to receive baptism.

Anzulovic notes the almost complete absence of actual Christian theology or morality in the poem; he quotes Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic, who said "Njegos's Christology is almost rudimentary. No Christian priest has ever said less about Christ than this metropolitan from Cetinje." Another anti-Christian facet of Njegos' world-view is the quasi-Manicheism view that the world itself is an evil place. And while Njegos presents the battle between Christianity and Islam as a battle between good and evil, there is nothing intrinsicly moral about the conflict as he describes it--Anzulovic ascribes "nihilism and necrophilia" to this blood-obsessed poet-priest.

At this point in his analysis, Anzulovic makes a very telling observation--that

"...the theme of the struggle against the Turks was not a part of the Serbian folk singers' repertory in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During this period of Turkish rule, the Serbs enjoyed peace and the benefits of a well-administered empire; their church had substantial autonomy; and service in the Ottoman army provided income for many Serbs."

There is more, but the key point is that the mythic component of Njegos' poem was projected backwards onto the period, rather than being a faithful representation of that era. He goes on to note that other works from the West concerning the conflict between Christians and Muslims were mostly devoid of the "intense and overt hatred displayed in The Mountain Wreath" Anzulovic quotes from several different works in order to demonstrate this, then compares The Mountain Wreath to another classic work of Slavic literature, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, which looks at ethnic violence much differently.

Finally, Anzulovic notes that

"...the glorification of genocide in The Mountain Wreath cannot be attributed to external influences. Many foreign influences can be detected, but not in the sphere of ethics."

Anzulovic states that there are two sources for this peculiar value-system: the cult of revenge from the Dinaric tribal societies, and the teachings of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Chorus

This section examines how many academics and intellectuals, both in Serbia and without, have turned a blind eye to the troubling moral code Njegos' poem articulates. He discusses the career of Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas, who bravely wrote about a massacre of Slavic Muslims in Montenegro in 1924, an atrocity which his own grandfather participated in. Yet:

"Djilas justified Njegos' advocacy of violence. He recognized that violence was evil, yet found its use in the service of Serbia's national goals permissible because "Serbianism is a concrete form of the human desire for good, for freedom." "

Like many Serbian nationalists, Djilas shared a sense that Serbs were threatened by the outside world; combined with the sense of their "rightness" as a people, almost means can justify preserving such a mythic/religious end.

Blind, unthinking faith in the righteousness of "Serbianism"; an unwavering certainty that considers no violation of decency and morality outside the bounds of propriety as long as whatever atrocity we are considering is in the service of this holy cause--and yet, the proponents of "Greater Serbia" somehow tried to convince the world they were fighting against dangerous religious fanatics.

"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [4]

CHAPTER TWO: THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE TURKS

Ottoman Religious Tolerance

Anzulovic begins Chapter 2 with this observation:

"The union of Serbian church and nation, a Byzantine heritage, became even tighter after the Ottoman Turkish conquest, when Serbia ceased to exist as a territorial and political entity. Since the nation was no longer associated with a state, its link with the national religion became still more pronounced. The myth of the Heavenly Serbia was a manifestation of the radical union of nation and church. The Ottoman domination contributed to the development of the Serb's self-image of a holy people whose moral superiority makes them victims of the immorality of others."

He is quick to point out that the conquest of Serbia within the Ottoman Empire was a genuine tragedy--with the notable exception of the Serbian Church, all national institutions were eliminated and Serbian society lost its entire elite stratum; the nation was "reduced to a society of peasants and small merchants in an empire dominated by a foreign civilization." Despite all that, the Ottomans cannot be blamed for all the problems and shortcomings of the Balkan states which began to emerge from the 19th Century on.

The rest of this section briefly illustrates the relative tolerance of the Ottoman world, at least until the economic and political declines of the later empire led to greater repression and resistance. Again, I am assuming that most readers of this blog are familiar with this material.

The Short-Lived Serbian Empire

This short section contrasts the glory of the historical memory of Tsar Dusan's empire with the reality--the empire mostly grew at the expense of a greatly weakened Byzantium; he ruled over many non-Serb subjects who had no love for the Serbian Empire; it lacked the administrative infrastructure to develop or last as a long-term viable state. It was already a fragmented ghost of itself by the time the Ottomans began picking it apart shortly after his death.

Resistance and Collaboration

In a nutshell, this section details the complex reality of the history of the eventual Turkish conquest rather than the national myths which obscure, rather than illuminate, this period. The obvious example is, of course, the 1389 Battle of Kosovo which did not--contrary to centuries of mythologizing--end in a Serbian defeat. Even more telling than the actual outcome is the fact that there was little solidarity among the Serbs and other Balkan Christians; many non-Serbs fought with Prince Lazar, and many Serbs chose not to. The historical record of this period is not as complete as one would like, but one thing becomes clear--the Serbs, like all other peoples in that time and place, had varied and often inconsistent responses to the Ottoman threat. Some chose to resist, some chose to fight with the Ottomans, some chose to stay on the sidelines. For example, the Serb Despot Djuradj Brankovic aided the Ottoman victory at Varna by preventing the Albanian leader Skanderbeg from joining his Christian allies.

After the conquest, Serbs were often resettled in lands depopulated by fleeing Christians; yet another complex ambiguity from the Ottoman period that modern nationalists would choose to ignore.

Oliver Kamm on Burma and the Dubious Defense of Sovereignty by Anti-Interventionists

A couple of days ago, Oliver Kamm posted a short piece on Burma, the junta, and the problem of sovereignty:

Kamm Fire Warning Shot Across Bow of Sovereignty-Clinging Autocrats Everywhere

My own personal ideological journey related to Bosnia and interventionism in general has led me to the conclusion that "sovereignty" is going to be one of the sticking issues of 21st Century; Kamm promises to write more on this issue and I look forward to those writings. I, too, am being drawn towards a more extended consideration of the issue.

I encourage you to read the articles Kamm links to in his post as well. Rigter and Aaronivich both have powerful moral arguments; as a side note, it is welcome--but not surprising--to note that Bernard Kouchner is one of the most forceful advocates on this isse at the UN.

Disturbing Threat to Press Freedom

I normally leave the breaking-story news updates to the ever-diligent Shaina at Bosnia Vault, but this story from the latest OSCE Report seems especially sinister and troubling:

OSCE: Deteriorating State of Media Freedom in BiH

This is certainly something worthy of more attention. The use of violence and intimidation to silence press criticism is never a good sign; in Bosnia, this sort of thuggishness is all-too-familiar from recent history.