User:Antidiskriminator/sandbox/Myths of Serbian Nationalism
The Myths of Serbian Nationalism are national myths of Serbs. There are three central myths of Serbian nationalism: of heroic Serbian army during the World War I, of martyrdom of Serbs during the World War II and Kosovo Myth. The other myth include myth of ethnic purity, Zoran Đinđić myth and many other.
Background
The Myths of Serbian nationalism were created to strengthen Serb national spirit.
Holm Sundhausen believed that there is specific Balkan mentality characterized by a particular propensity for myths.[3] Sundhausen emphasized that those myths included the myth of golden pre-Ottoman period, myth of Turkish yoke, of ethnic purity, of national rebirth, the Kosovo myth, the hayduk myth and victimization myth.[4] This view was criticized by Maria Todorova who pointed to similar Western myths and underlined that this myths were inflamed to be operational only at certain periods, such as period of Yugoslav wars.[5] Renata Salecl pointed to the incorrect hypothesis that myths of Serbian nationalism are constructs imposed by the government, emphasizing that people adopt myths because they are articulate some of their utopian desires.[6] The Myths of Serb nation had been built on the basis of Serb virtue, sense of justice and victimization.[7]
Central myths
According to Bogdan Denitch there are three central myths of Serbian nationalism[8] :
- Myth of heroic role of army of the First World War
- Myth of martyrdom of Second World War
- Kosovo myth
Kosovo Myth
The Kosovo Myth is a belief held by a large group of people that the
The Kosovo myth pictures Serbia as Antemurale Christianitatis, similarly to constructions of the other nations in the Balkans.[14] According to this myth, the Serbs sacrificed themselves to allow civilized Europe to flourish.[15]
The Kosovo Myth existed in the Serbian oral tradition for centuries, until it was recorded by early collectors like Vuk Karadžić and evoked by Slobodan Milošević at the end of 1980's.[11] Since its establishment at the end of the 14th century the Kosovo Myth and its poetic, literary, religious, and philosophical exposition was intertwined with political and ideological agendas.[16] Shortly after the Battle of Kosovo this battle was mythologized which over the time resulted with creation of the Kosovo Myth.[17]
The scale of interpretations of the Kosovo Myth is undeniably one of the richest. On one side it can be interpreted as "democratic, anti-feudal, with a love for justice and social equality" while on the another as "an instrument of fascist policy of violence and expansion".[18]
In the illogical interpretations of late 20th century Serbian nationalists, the choice for heavenly Serbia also entitled Serbs to the earthly kingdom which Lazar actually renounced. According to this interpretations Serbs were heavenly nation "authorized by God to sweep away all that stood at its path".
Noel Malcolm believes that Kosovo Myth is constructed by modern Serb nationalism.[21]
Myth of Serbian military valor
The myth of Serbian military valor presents Serbian army as defending the interests of non-Serbs of the region.[18]
In the school texbooks during 1990s, ratio of war topic and peace topic is 4:1 while 84% of the text dedicated to military valor with patriotic message being strongest messages in textbooks in Serbia.[22] There are some elements of the kitsch in Serbian myths which can be recognized in myth of invincibility of Serbs, in some cases having syndrome of "moral victory" which allows to proclaim lost battles as moral victories.[23]
Myth of martyrdom of Serbs during the Second World War
The Myth of martyrdom of Serbs during the Second World War was more important than the myth of Kosovo during
Other myths
Myth of ethnic purity
Besides myth of "golden" pre-Ottoman times,
Myth of Serbs as chosen people
At the end of 19th century Serbs were the only nation with nation-state of all other nations who in 1918 entered Yugoslavia.
Zoran Đinđić myth
After death of Zoran Đinđić he was mythologized into symbol of "good Serbia" while his death was interpreted as sacrifice for well being of the Serb nation.[13]
Myth of Great Serbia
The establishment of the Myth of Great Serbia can be linked to Serbian Empire, an ephemeral polity in the history of the Balkans which was the result of favorable circumstances and actions of skillful political and military leader, the Emperor Stefan Dušan.[35] Based on this historical roots this myth survived in national ideology of Serbs to support 19th century national awakening, the foreign policy of Serbia and its hegemony within federative Yugoslavia.[36]
With appropriate political stimulation, the myth of Great Serbia started to replace the ideas of ie Yugoslavianism replacing them with ideas of Serbocentrism.[37]
Apologists of secession of Croatia and Slovenia presented
Criticism
Slobodan Naumović, professor of ethnology and anthropology, emphasizes that a number of scholarly texts about myths of Serbian nationalism applied strategy of orientalisation or more precisely Balkanisation.[39] Texts about myths of Serbian ethnic nationalism usually depict them of as "barbarian" and "primitive" with background in the "madness of ethnic purity".[40] Naumović depicted such strategy as inappropriate for social science.[41]
The Memorandum of Serbian Academy of Science and Arts and Slobodan Milošević were blamed for fabrication of myths to inspire nationalism of Serbs and direct their efforts toward creation of the
Gertjan Dijink pointed to analysis that brutal Yugoslav wars were partly a result of failure of the Yugoslav narrative which gave a sense of identity and dignity to its population. Dijink emphasize that it is a great tragedy that wars unleashed because of perished Yugoslav myths had to be stopped by destroying Serbian myths which remained.[43]
References
- ^ (Balorda 2009, p. 124)
- ISBN 978-0-8476-9809-7.
The overwhelming influence of Serbs from the Vojvodina and Srem in the literary fields and the arts, coupled with their anti-Turkish sentiments, resulted in a Serbian national myth that was anti-Turkish.
- ^ (Todorova 2004, p. 7)
- ^ (Todorova 2004, p. 7)
- ^ (Todorova 2004, p. 7)
- ^ (Salecl 2002, p. 136)
- ISBN 978-0-275-97923-2,
Throughout history the Serbian myths had been built around the Serbs' righteousness, sense of justice, and victimization by others.
- ISBN 9780816624591. Retrieved 8 September 2011.
There are three central nationalist myths in Serbia: that of the heroic role of the Serbian army in the First World War, that of the martyrdom of the Serbs in Second World War, especially in Croatia, and that of Kosovo
- ^ (Macdonald 2002, p. 73)
- ^ (Kolstø 2005, p. 135):"Serbian myths celebrate Serbian belonging to the Byzantine tradition and Orthodox Christianity . Croatian myths mirror the pride of the Croatian belonging to the West and long historic ties with Roman - papal Christianity ."
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8014-8736-1. Cite error: The named reference "Kaufman2001" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ISBN 978-3-8258-8802-2.
The myth of Kosovo is the central national myth of Serbia.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-521-61690-4.).
a titanic contest between Christian Europe and the Islamic East
Cite error: The named reference "Ramet2005" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page - ^ ISBN 978-1-86064-624-9. Cite error: The named reference "VankovskaWiberg2003" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ISBN 978-0-275-97923-2
- ISBN 978-0-253-22306-7.
From its very inception the myth of Kosovo and its poetic, literary, religious, and philosophical exegesis was intertwined with political agendas and ideologies....
- ISBN 978-3-643-90287-0.
... the great amount of mythologization that followed shortly after it.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-109-19838-6. Cite error: The named reference "Segesten2009" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ISBN 978-1-84718-022-3.
If the prejudices that sprung from the myth of Kosovo about the accountability of Muslim Bosniaks for the Serbian defeat...
- ^ (Schwandner-Sievers & Fischer 2002, p. 60): "Unlike, for instance, Serbian nationalism, where ethnic and religious identities have merged (especially through the centrality of the Kosovo myth),..."
- ^ Modern Greek Studies Yearbook. University of Minnesota. 2005. p. 422.
...as Noel Malcolm's book on Kosovo has shown, the powerful "Myth of Kosovo" was constructed by modern Serbian nationalism.
- ^ (Segesten 2011, p. 195)
- ^ (Božilović 2006, p. 88)
- ISBN 978-1-137-02952-2.
More important even than the myth of Kosovo, which represents Serbian 'deep memory', was the memory of what had happened in the World War II
- ^ (Macdonald 2002, p. 259)
- ^ (Macdonald 2002, p. 259)
- ^ (Ruegg & Boscoboinik 2010, p. 179): "Apart from the myth of the 'golden' pre-Ottoman times, the 'Kosovo myth', the myth of the 'Turkish yoke', the 'Haidouk myth' and the myth of the 'purity of the nation', it is ..."
- ^ (Hodge & Grbin 2000, p. 272)
- ^ (Gavrilović, Despotović & Perica 2009, p. 14)
- ^ (Gavrilović, Despotović & Perica 2009, p. 14)
- ^ (Gavrilović, Despotović & Perica 2009, p. 16)
- ^ (Gavrilović, Despotović & Perica 2009, p. 20)
- ^ (Gavrilović, Despotović & Perica 2009, p. 22)
- ^ (Gavrilović, Despotović & Perica 2009, p. 23)
- ^ (Madgearu & Gordon 2008, p. 82)
- ^ (Madgearu & Gordon 2008, p. 82):"Even so , or maybe because of this , the myth of Great Serbia survived in Serbian national ideology as a support for the nineteenth - century revival , the foreign policy of Serbia , and Serbian hegemony within the Yugoslavian federation ."
- ^ (Robotycki 2003, p. 87):"This is how the myth of Great Serbia was born, which, given appropriate political stimulation, began to supplant the ideas of, say, Yugoslavianism, in the national consciousness, replacing it with Serbocentrism."
- ^ (Turnock 1999, p. 248) :"Apologists of secession from the Socialist Federal Republic , in Croatia ..."
- ^ (Naumović 2002, p. 26)
- ^ (Naumović 2002, p. 26)
- ^ (Naumović 2002, p. 26)
- ISBN 978-0-275-97923-2
- ^ (Dijink 2002, p. 118)
Sources
- Segesten, Anamaria Dutceac (16 September 2011). Myth, Identity, and Conflict: A Comparative Analysis of Romanian and Serbian Textbooks. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-4865-5.
- Naumović, Slobodan (2002). Ethnologia Balkanica. LIT Verlag Münster. GGKEY:ES2RY3RRUDS.
- Schwandner-Sievers, Stephanie; Fischer, Bernd Jürgen (2002). Albanian Identities: Myth and History. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34189-2.
- Todorova, Marii͡a Nikolaeva (2004). Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. ISBN 978-1-85065-715-6.
- Ruegg, François; Boscoboinik, Andrea (2010). De Palerme À Penang. LIT Verlag Münster. ISBN 978-3-643-80062-6.
- Hodge, Carole; Grbin, Mladen (2000). Europa i nacionalizam: nacionalni identitet naspram nacionalnoj netrpeljivosti : međunarodni simpozij, Korčula, 21.-28.9. 1998. Durieux. ISBN 978-953-188-113-5.
- Božilović, Nikola (2006). Kič kultura. Zograf. ISBN 978-86-7578-133-2.
- Balorda, Jasna (2009). Preživjeti genocid: analiza postratnih etničkih identiteta Bošnjaka. Maunagić. ISBN 978-9958-681-14-1.
- Salecl, Renata (31 January 2002). The Spoils of Freedom: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Ideology after the Fall of Socialism. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-90611-6.
- Macdonald, David Bruce (2002). Balkan Holocausts?: Serbian and Croatian Victim Centered Propaganda and the War in Yugoslavia. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-6467-8.
- Kolstø, Pål (2005), Myths and Boundaries in South-eastern Europe, Hurst & Company, ISBN 978-1-85065-767-5
- Dijink, Gertjan (November 2002), National Identity and Geopolitical Visions: Maps of Pride and Pain, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-134-77130-1
- Robotycki, Czesław (2003), Cultural Identity and Ethnicity in Central Europe: Proceedings of the International Conference on Ethnic and National Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, May 11-16, 2000, Wydawn. Uniwersitetu Jagiellońskiego, ISBN 978-83-233-1774-6
- Carter, Francis W.; Turnock, David (1999), "The Myth of Great Serbia", The States of Eastern Europe, Ashgate, ISBN 978-1-85521-512-2
- Madgearu, Alexandru; Gordon, Martin (2008), The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula: Their Medieval Origins, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 978-0-8108-5846-6
- Gavrilović, Darko; Despotović, Ljubiša; Perica, Vjekoslav; Srđan Šljukić (2009), Mitovi nacionalizma i demokratija, Centar za isoriju, demokratiju i pomirenje, ISBN 978-86-86601-07-0
Further reading
- Laffan, Robert George Dalrymple (1989), The Serbs: The Guardians of the Gate, Dorset Press, ISBN 978-0-88029-413-3