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The Serbs: Nurtured by Defeat

David B. Kanin

Adjunct Professor Johns Hopkins University

JULY 2011 | #13

13www.pecob.eu PECOB’s Scientific Board About PECOB’s people is an ininterdisciplinaryterdiscirdisciplinplinaryary boboardardofdd of ddirectors,irector responsible for reviewing proposals and graphic design: mdelgatto.com accepting international high quality scien- –‹Ƥ ’‹‡ ‡•‘ˆ”‡•‡ƒ” Š™‹–Š–Š‡ƒ••‹•–ƒ ‡ of the Europe and the Balkans Interna- tional Network and the Association of Ital- ian Slavists. Ž›–Š‡• ‹‡–‹Ƥ ’ƒ’‡”•ƒ ‡’–‡†ƒˆ–‡”ƒ blind review process will be published in the portal. ‡„‡”•‘ˆ–Š‡ ‹‡–‹Ƥ ‘ƒ”†‘ˆ‹”‡ - tors are: Ȉ–‡ˆƒ‘‹ƒ Š‹‹ȋ Ȍ Ȉ ”ƒ ‡• ‘”‹˜‹–‡”ƒȋ Ȍ Ȉƒ” ‡ŽŽ‘ ƒ”œƒ‹–‹ȋ Ȍ Ȉ–‡ˆƒ‘ ƒ”œ‘‹‘ȋ Ȍ

PECOB’s Editorial Staff selectssellectts andand bbrbringsiinggs ttogetheroggetthher tthehe ththinkinginkin of distinguished scholars, scholars experts, experts rre- •‡ƒ” Š‡”•ƒ†‰‡‡”‹ —•‡”•‘‡–”ƒŽǦƒ•–‡”—”‘’‡ǡ–Š‡ƒŽƒ”‡‰‹‘ƒ†–Š‡‘•–- ‘˜‹‡–•’ƒ ‡ǡ„› ‘ŽŽ‡ –‹‰• ‹‡–‹Ƥ ƒ†‹ˆ‘”ƒ–‹‘†‘ —‡–•Ǥ Ms Aurora Domeniconi ‹• ‘‘”†‹ƒ–‘”‘ˆ–Š‡†‹–‘”‹ƒŽ–ƒơǤ‘— ƒ ‘–ƒ –Š‡”ˆ‘”‰‡‡”ƒŽ”‡“—‡•–•ǡ ‘—‹- cations concerning conferences and events, courses, academic calls and contents for the ˆ‘”ƒ–‹˜‡”‡ƒǡ’”‘’‘•ƒŽ•ƒ†•—„‹••‹‘‘ˆ• ‹‡–‹Ƥ  ‘–”‹„—–‹‘•ˆ‘”–Š‡ ‹‡–‹Ƥ  Library. [email protected] Mr Michele Tempera ‹•”‡•’‘•‹„Ž‡‘ˆ–Š‡‡ –‹‘—•‹‡•• —‹†‡Ǥ‘— ƒ ‘–ƒ –Š‹ˆ‘” ‘—‹ ƒ–‹‘• concerning the economic and business section. [email protected] Mr Massimiliano Del Gatto ‹•–Š‡™‡„ƒ•–‡”ƒ†Š‡ƒ†‘ˆ‰”ƒ’Š‹ †‡•‹‰ƒ†’”‘‰”ƒ‹‰Ǥ‘— ƒ ‘–ƒ –Š‹ˆ‘” ‘—‹ ƒ–‹‘•”‡Žƒ–‡†–‘‰”ƒ’Š‹ Žƒ›‘—–ǡ„”‡ƒ†‘™•‹˜‹•—ƒŽ‹œ‹‰’ƒ‰‡•‘”‹- correct functioning, as well as for technical details and requirements of contributions. [email protected]@unibo.it PECOB’s Scientific Board is an ininterdisciplinaryterdiscirdisciplinplinaryary boboardardofdd of ddirectors,irector responsible for reviewing proposals and graphic design: mdelgatto.com accepting international high quality scien- –‹Ƥ ’‹‡ ‡•‘ˆ”‡•‡ƒ” Š™‹–Š–Š‡ƒ••‹•–ƒ ‡ of the Europe and the Balkans Interna- tional Network and the Association of Ital- ian Slavists. Ž›–Š‡• ‹‡–‹Ƥ ’ƒ’‡”•ƒ ‡’–‡†ƒˆ–‡”ƒ blind review process will be published in the portal. ‡„‡”•‘ˆ–Š‡ ‹‡–‹Ƥ ‘ƒ”†‘ˆ‹”‡ - tors are: Ȉ–‡ˆƒ‘‹ƒ Š‹‹ȋ Ȍ Ȉ ”ƒ ‡• ‘”‹˜‹–‡”ƒȋ Ȍ The Serbs: Ȉƒ” ‡ŽŽ‘ ƒ”œƒ‹–‹ȋ Ȍ Ȉ–‡ˆƒ‘ ƒ”œ‘‹‘ȋ Ȍ Nurtured By Defeat

PECOB’s Editorial Staff selectssellectts anandd bbrbringsiinggs ttogetheroggetthher tthehe ththinkinginkin of distinguished scholars, scholars experts, experts rre- •‡ƒ” Š‡”•ƒ†‰‡‡”‹ —•‡”•‘‡–”ƒŽǦƒ•–‡”—”‘’‡ǡ–Š‡ƒŽƒ”‡‰‹‘ƒ†–Š‡‘•–- ‘˜‹‡–•’ƒ ‡ǡ„› ‘ŽŽ‡ –‹‰• ‹‡–‹Ƥ ƒ†‹ˆ‘”ƒ–‹‘†‘ —‡–•Ǥ by David B. Kanin Ms Aurora Domeniconi ‹• ‘‘”†‹ƒ–‘”‘ˆ–Š‡†‹–‘”‹ƒŽ–ƒơǤ‘— ƒ ‘–ƒ –Š‡”ˆ‘”‰‡‡”ƒŽ”‡“—‡•–•ǡ ‘—‹- Adjunct Professor Johns Hopkins University cations concerning conferences and events, courses, academic calls and contents for the ˆ‘”ƒ–‹˜‡”‡ƒǡ’”‘’‘•ƒŽ•ƒ†•—„‹••‹‘‘ˆ• ‹‡–‹Ƥ  ‘–”‹„—–‹‘•ˆ‘”–Š‡ ‹‡–‹Ƥ  Library. [email protected] Mr Michele Tempera ‹•”‡•’‘•‹„Ž‡‘ˆ–Š‡‡ –‹‘—•‹‡•• —‹†‡Ǥ‘— ƒ ‘–ƒ –Š‹ˆ‘” ‘—‹ ƒ–‹‘• concerning the economic and business section. [email protected] Mr Massimiliano Del Gatto ‹•–Š‡™‡„ƒ•–‡”ƒ†Š‡ƒ†‘ˆ‰”ƒ’Š‹ †‡•‹‰ƒ†’”‘‰”ƒ‹‰Ǥ‘— ƒ ‘–ƒ –Š‹ˆ‘” ‘—‹ ƒ–‹‘•”‡Žƒ–‡†–‘‰”ƒ’Š‹ Žƒ›‘—–ǡ„”‡ƒ†‘™•‹˜‹•—ƒŽ‹œ‹‰’ƒ‰‡•‘”‹- correct functioning, as well as for technical details and requirements of contributions. [email protected]@unibo.it

About PECOB’s people Table ofcontents PECOB callsfor papers! About PECOB Creative CommonsLicense David B.Kanin Bibliography 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Introduction Keywords Abstract Serb’s Defeat. Conclusion: Can Serbia Emerge From Defeat? Assassination asDefeat Defeat andDenial:TheWars of the1990sandSerbian Self-Delusion Setting Serbia Upfor Defeat From World WarThrough II theTito Years: One Serb’s Victory is Another “Defeat” to Begins Have aSourTaste 1915—Apotheosis ofTriumphant Defeat The Serbs Were NotAlone The Serbs Enter Europe Toward Nation,State, andModernism That 1389 andAll ...... 47 46 45 44 42 38 37 34 33 29 27 24 20 17 14 11 9 8 7 2

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 5

National Defense University, Washington, D.C., 1April2010. incomplete defeat in1918. victory in World War II—resembles some-what Germany’stoward attitude its attend thecelebrationof theanniversary of whatthe rest ofEurope considered continuing senseSerbia’sof defeat. pathology—reflected in itsrefusal in2005 to Minister Djindjic in 2003 continues to spark introspec-tive characterizations of a Serbia hadcome to counton—remain undigested. The assassination of Prime and demonization by otherBalkans peoplesandby larger powers whose respect catastrophes ofthe1990s. Those defeats—loss ofterritoryregional and status led literary keepersand political of the flameof defeat to move Serbs toward the Communist regime’s systematic dismantlingofSerbia’sand pretentions status the defeat of 1941, destruction of the Chetniks by adecidedly un-Serb Tito, andthe constitution celebratednew Serbiancontrol over large a regionalIn-stead,space. 1918. across the 1389towardbattlefield whatwould becomethe earthly victory of a conscious decision notto make aLazar-like sacrifice,ratherbut to keep moving 16—for modernSerbiaapotheosis ofvictoriousthe defeat—waspunctu-ated by and 19thcenturies into theKosovo memory. Nevertheless, the retreatof 1915- contemporary, touchstones. Serbpoets andpoliticiansfolded defeats ofthe18th mass commemorative ralliesin 1889 the battlefieldand1989 atremain central, tetic remains of «Tsar» Lazar, continuingreferences to his heavenly kingdom, and itself, informsnot thebattle the construction of collective The peripa- defeat. oflution songs and memories adapted toof thetaskhoningaHerderian nation, ate pointfor starting a discussion of Serbia’s relationship tothe evo- but defeat, structive exile.of KosovoThe iconicbattle Polje in1389 remainsappropri- an them withnon-Serbianthem, inundating settlers, or banishingthemto ade- from defeat to Enemies havedefeat. failed to (or refrained from) destroying victory anddefeat affect future actionsonbothsides. and losers, ontheother hand, remainandtheir paired incontact, experiences of community they might literally lookfor greener pastures. Sedentarywinners quished group’s memory and collective existence. Ifthedefeated are amobile to inspectitssetbacks itsconqueror hasstoppedthe van-out shortofwiping There are worse Ifacommunityhas the opportunity things thandefeat. Abstract 1 For Serbianhistory nationalists, should have ended on June28,1921, when a The Serbs are amongthosewho have developed theiridentityby moving An earlierAn version ofthispaper was presentedsymposiuma at of ‘Defeat’ onthesubject the held at 1

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 7 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 8 Karadjordjevic, Tito, Rankovic, andMilosevic a collective future. favorless dramatic, ofa more productive focusdifferent onfindinga way to craft Serbia, Yugoslavia, Defeat, Kosovo, Bosnia,Croatia, Herder, Alexander Keywords Collective healingwould require thehard decision to stop nurturingdefeat in the Face of Cultural Devastation the purposeofoverwhelming Uigher identity). (forinundation exampleclearlythat the HanChineseinXinjiang settlement has rather thanbeingpermitted theluxury ofcollective movement),or assimilation, have beenspared thefate ofannihilation,exile (which could meanascattering be arelevant specimenfor Schivelbusch analytic microscope. developed society—would perish in case of Arab victory in afuture conflictcould by theUnited States andSoviet Union,or of sheerWhetherIsrael—aluck. highly War was aresult of this modernity, anartifact of the deterrence dance performed question ofwhether theavoidance oftotalduring theCold annihilation nuclear least permanently incapacitate theenemy.” seeking revengeto turn totalwar, under which the only option isto “destroy orat cultures” donotusually perish when defeated, although henotesthose that experience of modern defeat. garners more attention thanthecollective suffering has that become the virtues—in which thehonor of individual(forcombat victor andvanquished) He properly distinguishesbetweenmedievaland ancient the ethos ofmartial motivations, andfuture actionsonbothsides. each other,experiencethe leading ofvictorydefeat and to affectidentities, On the other hand, sedentaryof “nations” our world remain incontactwith they might wellshrug off thesetbackand—literally—look for greener pastures. group’s memory and collective existence. If thedefeated are amobilecommunity not—has stopped shortcomprehensiveof a effort tothe vanquishedout wipe community hastheopportunityto thenavictor—by inspectitsdefeat, choice or The perception ofone’sown“defeat” indicates anincomplete condition. If a 1. 5 4 3 2 • anyIn case,moving forwardatmosphere inan ofdefeatmeans thedefeated WolfgangSchivelbusch, inhis study of defeat, These more extreme strategieswith as combination, in applied be can For a thoughtfulexamination of aconditionbeyond defeatsee JonathanLear, Ibid.,p.19,27. Ibid.,p.1,15-16. insignificance of expressions of defiance by residual activists isan to marginalizein North America. inhabitants aboriginal serialexiles,the killings, policies used and settlement absorption, The Culture ofDefeat: OnNationalTrauma, Mourning,andRecovery Introduction (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 2006). 3 Schivelbusch“highly thensuggeststhat developed 4 He generally leaves unanswered the 2 offers an approach to this issue. (NewYork: Picador, 2001). Radical Hope:Ethics in 5 Terminal

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 9 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 10 of the collective patrimony. The defeat suffered by Krajina Serbs in1995 is an to declare “here is Serbia,” thussanctifyingtheir new home as anintegral part in 1690),they often have done socohesively them manner permitting a in and invitationor pressure from hegemonsofthedaytrek (asinthe to Vojvodina the experience of destructive exile. WhenSerbs have moved en masse under inundated non-Serbian themwith them out, them throughsettlers, norput they have moved from defeatto Various defeat. conquerors have neither wiped end-point onaconceptualspectrumrunningfrom dominationto destruction. distressnational is testimony to the place of defeat assomething other than an of memoryandangercanstoke desires for revenge orotherwise accommodate forfact the defeated, that, things couldhave been worse. The fact thatpublicists 1983). description experience.of thenationalizing See Benedict Anderson, to aso-far docileminorityinthenewCroatian state. exception—Croatia succeeded in reducing aoncecohesive, martial community 6 • The Serbsare those peopleswho among have developed theiridentityas • Therefore, consideration ofcollective defeat should take intothe account • • note thespecific relevance ofthisanaloguefor contemporary Serbia. foundations of the post-Wilhelmianorder. At theend of this chapter I will ratherresponsibility, than seriously that pathology a undermined the ensuring toothat many Germanswould thinkinterms of betrayal army commanders—who better—wentknew with these alonglies, themselves for the searing experience Hypocritical ofdefeat. humiliating revisionist whopublicists Jews,blamed Communists, and anyone but DemocratsGerman Social basically concededfunctiontothis crucial mattersIt who alot gets to define and describe “defeat.” In1918-19 these communitieseventually threw offtheirshackles. identity viatheexperiences ofslaveryJim Crow and persecution. All various Africancommunitiescame together“African-American” inan nurture collective identitythrough centuries of suffering, and slaves from and MessenianHelots ancient EgyptinthePeloponnesus wereto leftable Mass enslavement, like is a less-than-finalcondition. defeat, Jews in identities ofrace andclass. of victorydefeat and from communities to imaginednational constructed totalitarianforms hadmixed success in their efforts to changethefocus identity when Soviet replacedThose Germanoccupation.imposingthese as victorsof theeffort orvirtuousas part to design“progressive”a or influenceinWorldWar while II, Communistsrepackagedworkers local countries defined themselves as Aryans while under German occupation vanquished. For example,various and fascists nationalists local in various Effortsforced at directedbe can assimilation by eithervictor or than defeat. a communityhassufferedindication that something more catastrophic Despite successive generations of critics, Benedict Anderson’sphrase titular remains apowerful toand, lesser extent, a Montenegro hasamounted tonot inundation, dominated by Serbs or other Slavs insouthern Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, The demographicAlbanian expansion inandinto areas previously 6 Imagined CommunitiesImagined (London: Verso, version ofwhat Edward Saidcalled“Orientalism.” generalwith brutality belief intheideaofBalkan backwardness persists as a have corrected thisimpression, age-old rivalries.out acting Many subsequentacademicandpopularhistories observersof Yugoslavia ofthecollapse to believeregionpeoples inthe that were hatred. Robertdid harmwhen Kaplan hiswidely-read BalkanGhosts modernization, not some expression of “Balkan”primordial, atavistic ethnic Between Globalization andFragmentationBetween (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, and DusanI.Bjelic Obrad Savic, eds.: Empire andItsGermanicPeoples defeatof Serbian notables. However, Kosovo was neitherthecradleof theSerb nor sitenation ofthefirst identity.in theshapingofthat June 28hasremained theSerbs’day.national forpoint any discussion of Serbianidentity, of therolein particular and of defeat the opportunityto helpshaperegional andEuropean futures. images. Sincetheir condition is one of defeat andnotdestruction, the Serbs have they are attemptingto cometouncomfortable gripswith international self- and of both World Wars, the various forms of “Yugoslavia,” andthewars of the 1990s, of the1990s. As Serbs revisitglories ofpast tales and sacrifices, the experiences change amountsto an experience of defeat over and above the physical defeats Other from victimor hero to evenbrutal, genocidalaggressor. This perceptual part ofaself-representation thatbothseduces anddefiesthisOther. Ditchev hassuggested thisprocessthat involves internalizing aWestern Otheras rivalsarebattles, and models,notancient therelevantreference points.Ivalyo in themixedplace claiming and globalizing nationalizing context. Contemporary Balkanidentities have of thelargerpart been pattern ofdefiningidentityand patternnationalizing ofthenineteenth century. ConstructionofSerbianand other coalesced intopoetry but movementsocial a only of thegeneral aspart European The Serbian constructed memory of nurtured defeat is a problem of 9 8 7 of Kosovo The battle Poljeon June28,1389 remainsappropriate an starting 2. The current traumafor Serbs hasbeentheshift in theviewof them by this Serbianreflections ondefeatsand otherexperiences beganlatewith medieval 12 11 10

other, America,andAfrica. conquest andcolonization process modern Europeans inflicted on each of outsiders’ mass absorption of the Roman Empire of the Albanianizationwhat is now “Kosova” resembles thepattern was largely exogenous) rather thantheother way round. Inthisway, Migrationconquest. preceded force ofarms(which, whencame, it Amongthemany correctives the reader is invited to consider Maria Todorova, Robert D. Kaplan, For an argument thatRome was inundated rather than conquered, see Herwig Wolfram, For one ofmany discussions of this, see RobertJeffries, and Ian Bideleux Ivalyo Ditchev, «The Eros ofIdentity,» in BjelicandSavic, NewYork: Vintage,1979. 1389 andAllThat Balkan Through Ghosts:AJourney History (Berkeley, University ofCalifornia Press, 1997). 12 In fact, this seminal battle was thisseminalbattle fact, In defeat nota forall at (Cambridge,MA:MIT Press, 2002). 9 but the conflationofperceptions but ofSerb Balkan asMetaphor 10 (NewYork: Scribner’s,1993). 7 , p.236. more thanthe Imagining theImagining Balkans The Balkans: APost- Balkan as Metaphor: 11 8 led some led The Roman

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 11 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 12 defeat. Whoever defeat. wrote thesemyths turned“Tsar”Lazar, commander ofSerbian creatingof earthlysanctified themeaning songs that poems and the initial had control over theircommunities’educationandcultural existence. Zadrugathan identityremained—under the Ottomansystem religious authorities the Orthodox Church took theleadinattempting to ensuresomething thatlarger extended families)the early until nineteenth century. TimJudahhasnoted that generalsense of being “Serb” (asopposed to identityaspartof “Zadrugas”— of theSerbianprincely state. Frompoint onthere that evidence islittle of any Kosovoat Poljedid irrevocable todamage whatwas of thecohesivenessleft Balkans (thistimetakingConstantinopleaswell). Ankarain 1402, forcing laterto Sultans regroupand to redo theirconquestofthe in 1389 was interrupted by Tamerlane’s catastrophic defeat ofBayezedSultan at Serbianin subsequent action. of the tales and Magyars joined the Serbs infighting atKosovo Polje, apointlargely ignored English.(who Albanians would nothave recognized term),that Croats, Bosnians, their deals withthe invaders repeatedlymuch asScottishnotables did with the in 1371 and atKosovo Polje in1389 saw Serbs on both sides, as some made Dusan inthemid-14th century.against Battles theOttomans ontheMaritza They turnedon eachotherfollowingthe deathofempire-builder Stefan 1937 credited even theweakest ofhaving themwith nurtured Serbian identity (although Rebecca West’s Serbianguide duringherfamous tripto theBalkans in the Muslims. viewedConstantinople clear that theSerbs orBulgars aslessthreatening than in Byzantine succession politics eased Ottoman accessto theBalkans—itwas not and advancedGallipoli his father’s forces intoOsman’s thepeninsula. involvement SuleymanPasha, sonofOrhan,himself sonofdynastic founder tookOsman, state. Afourth contestantcompeted for Balkansupremacy after 1354, when competition withresidual Byzantine power andasometimes powerfulBulgarian European modernity. between glorifying their special identityor subsuming itwithinacollective Serbsdebate still theirchoice between “heavenly”and “earthly” kingdoms— internationalcourts judgerecent individualand collective Serbianbehavior, must take placefor the sake of a greater and necessary triumph. Today, while set thepattern for subsequent Serbianexperiences of defeat—asif eachdebacle mythology oftriumph. This spiritual constructed memory of sacrificial heroism other means ofaestheticexpression to subsumethisexperience ofdefeatin a some ofthem. Communist History the offensive—some Turkish sources claim otherwise and stateMurad that died stages of the fightingduring theopening (the Serbs say they started theday on of the Passion. A Serb herowas named Obilic creditedMurad Sultan with killing and associated forces in 1389, intoversion a intoof Jesus and thebattle aversion 15 14 13 Orthodox priests of Serbian background probably werein instrumental Even given thehyperbole surrounding these events, itisthe clear thatdefeat Serbian princes appear to have beenquarrelsome and easily divided The medievalSerbian empire developed inthecontextthree-corneredof a has madethiseventWhat the useofpoetry,iconichas been and painting,

TimJudah, TheSerbs (NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997),p.38 JohnB.Allcock, Rebecca West, (NewYork: Routledge, 2007),p.54. Black LambandGrey Falcon Explaining YugoslaviaExplaining (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 2000), pp. 315-316. (NewYork, Penguin, 1982),p.514. 14 The Ottoman supremacy established 15 13 ). carried around Serbiaanniversaryand Bosnia.Duringthat year itwas shownat prepared for the600th anniversaryof Kosovo oftheBattle Polje, hisbody was Lazar was taken to Belgrade. In1987, as Serbsin what wasstill Yugoslavia chosen to leave.1942, Into save Lazar’sremains from CroatianUstache fascists, Sremska Ravanica to remind Serbs of their connection to theKosovo they had The corpsemadeitsway then tomonasterya Srem in likely that was named priests leading theSerbs to what would becomeVojvodina brought Lazar along. Lazar hadfoundedRavanica at exhumed fromsiteburial itsoriginal in1401 or 1402takenand tomonasterya adventures that continueto this day.his Milica,widow, reportedly had the body supper” thenight before thebattle. Judas, tonational includehaving beensingledby out traitoras a Obilic “last a at of thoseSerbswho the Ottomans,with his lot cast was the Serbianvilified as while surveyingafter thebattlefield his victory). Meanwhile, VukBrankovic, one physicaldefeat “Kosovoof a The iconicpainting triumph. with spiritual girl” newly imagined imagerypreservedSerbia’s thenotionthat origins combined Nevertheless, the songs werethe heroicsung about still tragedy of 1389 and gave way to modern histories in thecontextof constructionofstate andnation. hegemony inthefirstYugoslav state). defeattriumphed in1918 in 1915-16,then(andwere but rewarded with 1914 twice staved off the forces of Austria-Hungary, suffered an epic—literally— defeat“as should be,” was astrikingsymbolof theheroism of theSerbs, who in From thecontextLazar, sheconcludedthat ofher historicalmoment, headless waslamb meantto indicate the spiritualsuperiority of Christianity to Islam. RebeccaWest notedthe decision thatofLazartoChrist-like becomea sacrificial spiritual purityandto make asacrifice for the greater sake of Christendom. words, theSerbshavecould wonchose defeatbut battle the to preserve their painted Lazarashaving chosen“heavenly”a over “earthly” an other kingdom. In philologist andco-founder of constructedthe language as “Serbo-Croatian, Ottomanrule inthe1870s. the grist for epic poems werethat performed during the Serbian risingagainst 15th and 16th century reports exist of these songs and rituals,which became litanynurturedthat rituals ofsongsand mixed a messageofdefeattriumph. and become Kosova. Ravanica.remainsIt areminder Serbianof continuing claims to whatnow has various sites inKosovo before returningonce again to its15thcenturyhomeat Lazar’s body was carried from thefieldandbeganseries a ofjourneys and 19 18 17 16 The nineteenth centurywas theeraof Herderian the oldpoems nationalism; The peripatetic physical remains of Lazar were accompanied by agrowing •

Ibid.,p.1099. West, andGrey BlackLamb Falcon, p.910. Ibid.,p.41 Ibid.,pp.38-9. 21st century. subsidized by Ottoman andYugoslav authorities down to the turn of the of his retainers (withsomeinterruption inthe20thcentury),who were site ofhistentof Kosovothe battle at Polje was protected by descendants It shouldbenotedMurad’s that body haditsown adventures, and thatthe 17 The famous poem by VukKaradzic (1787-1864), 16 . It stayed. It there1689-90, untilwhen those 19 18

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 13 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 14 The wars between Ottoman andHabsburg armies createdtoopportunity an anythingthe center but ofSerbianactivitysocial and political duringthis time. the centralityof Kosovo inSerbianrelativelyhearts, that infertilewas place sting of the physical defeat of 1389. Nevertheless, despitethe singingabout all assuage thedesire ofSerbianpriests, monks, andafew others to avenge the speech inthe1980saboutlater trauma ofWorld War II: expressed by Serbian Orthodox Bishop Jovan of Sabac-Valjevo in thecontext of a Tim Judah quotes one verdictmeaning of onthelastingdefeat in1389 as touchstone ofSerbianidentity, matterno layers subsequent ofmodernization. believed they hadcreated andwere entitledto. exactly 100 years later to proclaim preeminence in aYugoslavia many ofthem of tothe battle celebrate their modernizing identity.national They returned context.Serbs went en masseto Kosovo Poljein 1889 onthe500thanniversary soughtto understandthemeaningoftheirexperiences intheoft-shifting Balkan cry for oncoming or ongoing fights, andto provide a frame ofreference asSerbs seventeenth centurythesaga of1389 would beinvoked repeatedly asarallying did not become part ofSerbiathe Balkanuntil wars of1912-1913, afterbut the reinforced duringthevictories andtragedies ofthetwentieth century. as exemplary victim/heroes for whom defeat was by definition victory would be giving water to awounded warrior was produced in 1919. The basic ideaof Serbs then exist. ethnic hatreds intheBalkanspoisoned that the discourse of the1990s did not constituted their community. The popular notions of allegedly atavistic, primeval only limited awareness thezadrugasamong asto where Serbiawas orwho worked to preserve asense Serb identity,the ageofthere untilnationalism was oxymoron it is in today’s Europe) than withbeing“Serb.” Although the priests createidentity havingcommunal a more tovirtue (notthenthe “martial dowith 20 During thecenturies of Ottomanvictory rule,thebeliefinspiritual did not 3. The physical defeatKosovoand spiritualtriumphat Polje remains acentral In Kosovo Polje theSerbs hadsitea tangible goal.Kosovoand anational •

was notalone. 1389 Serbianand old songsabout singing the and glory.instrument) He Karadzic was fond(a traditionalhis Guzla out ofpulling Serbian stringed analysis duringthewars1990s. Serb oftheBosnian President Radovan The forms of poem andsong were revived at theexpense of historical Judah,p.47. can understandthattoday’s Serbian empire isin theheavens.” tortured inthemostterrible way orthrown into pitsby Ustashacriminals,thenwe (World Warmillions andofSerbian II), men, women, andchildrenand killed largest state inHeaven. Ifwe only thinkofthose innocent victims of warthe last HEAVENLYwhich SERBIA, today mostcertainly musthave grownto becomethe Toward Nation, State, andModernism “Since Prince Lazar and Kosovo the Serbs, abovehave all, been creating 20 and economy. western-stylewith state power remaincentral a factor intheregion’s politics opacity.more LocalBigMen, concerned with patronage responsibilities than established a pattern of informality and—especially from a legal sense—social state.networks Multiple ofpower, patronage, andsubsistence developed and startedarmy asaconqueringtribal never tomanaged develop intoefficient an elites)their small of autonomy,good deal hada mainly what because had janissary detachments, clerics, and notables. local viziers (often convertedfrom Muslims defeated Balkancommunities), pashas, light. SerbianOttomanvictimhood, theactual presence in theBalkans was relatively description ofAliPasha. Ali Pasha’s Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Fleming took hisfromtitle Lord Byron’s in theNapoleonicwarsBonaparte:The Muslim Fleming, E. see K. in DiplomacyandOrientalism to boot, Nationalities Papers The Ottomans inComparative Perspective (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2008). Ottoman Route to State CentralizationN.Y.:(Ithaca, CornellUniversity Press, 1994) and Empire ofDifference: Crisis 1997). For an example of the “yoke” metaphor from a well-known source, see Winston Churchill, Balkan EconomiesEvolution1800-1914: c. WithoutDevelopment between thehigher Greek Orthodox clerisySerbian andlocal (andBulgarian) physical defeat andspiritualtriumph. “Jerusalem.”.was Thesolution to leavenurture thespacebut thememories of square physical movement from Kosovo with spiritualcommitmentto itastheir developmentof Serbian mythology as Serbsaction andpolitical soughtto marker identitywasmeant that This portable.was animportantfactor in the stress on religion ratheror land cohesive than community associal linguistic social activity. became (andremain) actors and transmissions essentialtobelts economic and in their own flock.Localofficials, warlords and bandits(often thesamepeople) the end until of the 18th century clericalauthorities often did not control many originally were called“tai’fe (groups) included guildsaswell asreligions, and has exaggerated theorganizationalcoherence anddepth of thisconcept. taxation authority. Stafanos Katsikas haspointed theacademicliteratureout that ownand culturaleducational systems andwere privileged withconsiderable groups whose religious authorities were recognized bycontrolled thesultan their communities wasby enabled system, theso-calledMillet underwhich those • Althoughof theOttoman tales “yoke” gained traction amongthoseclaiming 25 24 23 22 21 wasWhat immediately relevantto Serbianidentity formation was thestruggle The eventualdevelopment of identityamongSerbian and other defeated (NewYork: Scribners,1923),vol. II,p.497. 21

The sultans wereThe sultans supported byloosely a runagglomerationof slave/ Thisofadetailedexaminationpoint ismade aspart of theOttoman systemPalairet, inMichael victorious anddefeated socialshards offormer Yugoslavia. havediplomats and hadintheireffort to impose“development”on both reason forbest—mixed the—at success Western viceroys, bureaucrats, formsparties, andotherpolitical political constitutions, major is a Failure to recognize these that networks matterstill more thanstates, For of the tale AliPasha, who enjoyed those all roles and had diplomaticrelations withthe participants Stefanos Katsikas,in Nation-States: «Millets The CaseofGreek andBulgarian1912-1923,» Muslims, David Men,Corruption,andCrime,» B.Kanin,«Big See Karen Barkey’s two excellentanalyses of the Ottoman system, BanditsandBureaucrats: the 23 , vol. 37,#2,March 2009,pp. 179-180. 25 Nevertheless, however, incomplete wassystem, theMillet its International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 22 Communities (or at least , vol. 40,2003,pp. 491-526. The World 24 What The

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 15 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 16 Kosovo mythof physical defeat Prince Eugenetriumph. spiritual and of Savoy’s of a newSerbianin their settlementBalkan territories helped rekindle the Serbpresence in Croatiatoday defeated isa minority, notadistinctive community. defeatfinal andexpulsionafter a Croatianoffensive inAugust1995. The residual World Warwas IIbut destroyed in acatastrophic—and, in thesense of identity— and thegeneralproject. The national Krajina survived even thepredations of railroad projects of the nineteenth centurycreated some ties between these Serbs distinctive evenactivity asthepolitical of co-ethnics elsewhere andHabsburg which a larger Serbian state couldcome into being.Their identity remained nurtured theepicpoems of1389 or viewed themselves asaPiedmont around wasclearly not “Serb.”There evidence islittle early that modernKrajinaSerbs cohesive communityproudto ofitsability defineinitiallya militaryidentitythat fought loyallyof inallAustria’s wars for the rest of that Monarchy’s existence.) (At thesametime,Habsburgs alsoconstructed Croatian militaryunitsthat between the two empires, there to livemilitary frontier asavirtual garrison. Serbs to resettle from Kosovo andelsewhere to thefishhook-shaped border area the 18thcentury. At theend of the 16th century theAustrian authorities invited byproduct ofwars between theHabsburgs andOttomans from the16th through Balkan spaces (to include more heavily Islamicized Bosnia). century, Muslims. than were Greece, Bulgaria, andMacedonia,were home to relatively few because thePashaluks ofBelgrade andNis were farther from Constantinople then they had managed to carve this was outtheir ownpath. Inpart, political smaller role inthe“horrors” of conflictsacenturyearliernationalizing because Bulgarians over “Macedonia.” decline, which sharpened the conflictsamongGreeks andbetween Greeks and something likedescribed that in theliterature, theOttomans were interminal this period. Bishops in Alexandria, Antioch,andJerusalemalsowere brought to heelduring to define Greek,Bulgarian, continues toMacedonian identitythat and thisday. befallenthe Archbishopric of Ohrid, in Macedonia, anepisode in thestruggle from theGreek Orthodox hierarchy in1767. A year earlier the samefate had 1389 and theideaofSerbian existence finally until shutdownunder pressure independent Archbishopric Pec—inin Kosovo—served to preserveof thetales priests and monks to determine of the languageprayer and education. Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 2009, development (relative to what was goingoninBosnia andCroatia after 1875) by Serbian authorities. low density, population heavily wooded condition of much ofthePashaluk,and underinvestment in railroad Retribution From the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Centuryand Beyond target only20,000 about were IslamizedSlavs. DuringtheOttoman centuries Serbia,unlike Bulgaria, never was a 30 29 28 27 26 hundredOne years after theoriginalKrajinaAustriansettlement solicitation The “Krajina”, aword meaning frontier (similar to “Ukraine”) became a The projectmodernthe Serbianbecame that state beganto take forma as the wakeIn ofthewars1990s iseasy oftheit to forgetSerbsthat played a for

Palairet, Examples of Croats’ military service are studdedthroughout Peter H. Wilson,The Thirty Years War: SeePalairet, pp.22, 85-128 and 330-1, for commentsontheunproductive Serbianrural economy, Andre Gerolymatosin 1800, suggeststhatof the 300,000-400,000 people inthe Pashaluk of Belgrade Katsikas,in Nation-States,» «Millets ibid. significant 29 28 andthusprobably was more marginalin Ottoman other thinking than Serbia was difficult to travelto through and wellinto thenineteenth 27 Inthenineteenth century, when the finallyMillet did come to look The Balkan Economies settlement by ethnic , p.129. Turks. Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and (NewYork: BasicBooks, 2002),P. 148. 26 The 30 physical defeatand sacred victory mustremain centralto Serbianidentity—an many voluntarily departed thissacredthe sitebelied the notion that place of Ottoman reprisals for Serb assistance to theHabsburg armies, the factso that Austro-Turkishsimilar a war inthe1730s. the headat of the massprocession. 120,000 more Serbs leftKosovo following elsewhere created “Vojvodina,”named to commemorate thewarlords (“Vojvods”) toand, ineffect, becomeacommunalcounterweight to theHungarians. Macedonia to resettle to landsnorthof Belgrade andtheSavarivers andDanube necessary. Therefore, asthey retreated the Austrians invited Serbs inKosovo and before the1867 Ausgleich—was recognized byunreliable Viennaasboth and magnates who owned hugetracts of fertile landandwhose loyalty—well expansion eastfocused the Austrians on theproblem ofHungarianmanaging toin 1690 in whichin battles halt a Serbsfought on theAustrian side. Their offensives against Ottomans inretreatfrom their siege of Viennain1685 ground and IanJeffries, « the 19 Pittsburgh Press, 2008),p.241. identities amongashiftingcast ofgreat powers. continues to beafluidprocess in which Balkan peoplesadjusttheir interests and various Serbian andotherpatronagenotables systems. This created what advancingthe time, Slavic empire inRussia attracted someattentionamong modern, inevitable,invincible globalizing entitycalled “theWest.” At the same Empire waslegs andhelpedcreate onitslast there thenotionthat existed a eventin 1798,seminal a led tothat (premature) a perceptionthe Ottoman that the French Revolution.Even more importantwas Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt fewmiles from eachother. However, thisbeganto changerapidly inthewake of heavily forested, anddevoid of regularcommunication even a amongvillages Ottomans’ Belgrade or Nis Pashaluks. Indeed, Serbia remained largely rural, commemorations of 1389—between Serbs inKrajina,Vojvodina, andthe images ofSerbian heroism. done in1896 painting andoften pairedthe 1919 with“Kosovo Girl”picture as disputed point to currentevents. Archbishop Artemije was saidto have ledtheexpedition—a the trekkers of1690 once more leftKosovo indroves duringthelastdecadeofTito era. embarrassing factwouldthat troubleSerbian againnationalists asco-nationals The resultingmigration of30,000-40,000 families 35 34 33 32 31 For thenextcentury, there wasdirect little relationship—and no general 4. This may bewhy laterthe priests claimed thatwho publicists accompanied th centuryisnotunwarranted.

DennisonRusinow, Yugoslavia: Allcock, For example, plates Judah, 1and16between pp.110and111. a scholarwho NoelMalcolm, hasstudied the Serbs, isquoted asbeingskepticalin Robert Bideleux Acomparisonbetween theSerbs’ movement to Vojvodinaexodus andtheBoers’much-sungabout in The Serbs Enter Europe The Balkans:Post-Communist A History Explaining Yugoslavia 34 —and theevents of1690 were celebratednationalistic ina 33 made sure to singsongsdesignedto the Kosovo tie tales 35 , pp.153-4. Oblique Insights and Observations Oblique Insights (London: Routledge,2007), p.517. See alsoJudah,p.1. 32 Nomatterof avoiding thelogic 31 from Pec, Prizren, and (Pittsburgh: University of

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 17 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 18 in eitherimperialcourt. soldiers wereand notables leftwithasense theythat could notinfluenceevents storyopened the modern MiddleEast. of the were contemporaneous withtheuprising by aSaudi-Wahhabi partnership that revoltsshould berememberedmade itso.It that his problems that intheBalkans perception athome and abroad his that Empire was ontheskids, which enabled in hissystem andhisfaith.He de-legitimized hisownpower, leadingto the reformer, adecision that amounted to a proclamation of a lackconfidence farmers and nascententrepreneurs. According toPalairet, Michael in1777 class of important relativelybut among asmall uncertainty wealthy Serbian economic dislocation—to includearapid de-urbanization—created a sense of Ali Pasha’s sometime rivalOsman Pasvanoglu. At thesametime,physical and ruling elites created opportunities for ethnicTurkishlocal Big Men,for example, threatby the Janissary troops Ottomanand local officials. Fissures among the Ottoman promise to respect therights of their Serbian subjects, the wardecisive shortofa victory. TheresultingTreaty of Sistova included an the power ofheir Russianmore allies of theirOttomanthat than foes—ended the residualin Ottoman space. Instead, the Austrians—who wereto coming fear Austrians to rollthe areaback ofOttoman control andprotect Serbian interests settlements. During fighting in1790 Serbs inthePashalukwere countingonthe masters,the Krajina mannerthan inamuchlesslasting albeit and Vojvodina Serbiandefeat once again that changedtheSerbs’ relationship to bothimperial series the continuing of wars between theHabsburgs and Ottomans led to anew Ottoman authorityorinSelim’s policies. and Napoleon’sfleet desertion of hisarmy didnothingto restore faith either in outside the Empire justhow weakit was—Nelson’s victory over the French to dispatchwarriors Mamluk with ease revealed to those watching inside and orthodoxytheir practicein as ofpractical administration. The French ability used muchby rulers who hadbeenascareless intheir considerationof Islamic and claimtotitle 18th theCaliphal century that spiritualleadership had been Indeed, it washad heldthistrust. only asOttoman power began to wane inthe sites of Meccaand MedinabyMamluksthe Egyptian supplanting who then until to take of the titleCaliphafter 1517, when they becameguardians of the holy toand theSultan’sauthority. spiritual Selim’s ancestors had only becomeentitled venue of Ottoman defeat was centralto Ottoman power, theimperial economy, settlements and“finalstatuses.” OttomanEmpire havesince, despitestable been not serialWestern-imposed 37 36 Meanwhile, theSultan’s reforming instinctswere becomingperceived as a The events of 1789-98 had immediate impactintheBalkans. The latest in Napoleon’s invasionwas ofEgypt eventcritical a in thisprocess because this The OttomanSelim III(ruled Sultan1792-1808) decided to become a •

confidence. victories and actual anddefeats andperceptions of self-worth andself- “governance”) hassetinhigh relief therelationshipbetween perceived various ideologies (to includethecurrent teleology of Democratic to develop independently of overweening outside occupiers and their The factSerbs that andother Balkan peopleshave notbeeninposition Ibid.andPalairet, p.85. Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars, pp.143-145. 36 These two peripheries of the 37 but Serbian but any movement inRussia or the Balkans for whatlater becameknownas “pan- outside support turnedto Russia’s Tsar Alexander I. There is no evidence of enemies both localandother with Ottoman troops dragged on,his search for tohad ability little dealeither with his enemies or himself, and ashis fight security. Karadjordj’sas theircapricious complaintapproach to otherpeoples’personal Janissary commanders, whose economic predations wereof part asmucha the Ottomans, involvedto aplea Constantinopleto intervene against thelocal influence onlocalaffairs. Karadjordj’s uprising,far from beingdirected against By thetimehe raised his revolt in1804 wasthe Sultan adistantfigure withlittle houses by 1834. deprivation reduced numbertothat 3000 (25,000 people) in1800 and only 769 Belgrade had 6000 houses (perhaps 30,000-55,000 unrestpeople), but and Misha Glenny, cultivated the site, giving thetower a roof in 1878achapelonthe and building tolink could 1389memories asofcollective sacrificeheroism.and TheSerbs warning to the Serbs becameinstead a shrine of triumphant defeat which Serbs up of the heads of 952 Serbsin 1809. killedinabattleWhatwas meantto be a “tower ofskulls”construction whosein Nis,a four sides and 14rows were made of thelatter’s defeat. of theovertlyKaradjordj’suprising that “national” revolthad become by thetime Karadjordj, was amuchbetter andwaspolitician, to able make himselfasymbol soon after Karadjordj’s defeat in1813. Obrenovic, lessphysically imposingthan Obrenovicraisedofficer first uprisingand an inthe hadbeen hisownstandard of MilosObrenovic, commander of Serbia’s nextand more successful revolt. descendents ruled Serbia, or whether they sulked in their opposition to thefamily whether Karadjordjconflict, was ahero or a coward depended on whether his the Karadjordjevic dynasty. “Yugoslavia” created after World War Iwas akingdomruled by his descendents, “war was the breath of life in his nostrils.” born warrior,”had become“a of “superb physique” temperament”); (if“unstable form ofmartyrdom. By thetimeRebecca West visited theBalkans, Karadjordj those who faulted his behavior or others who turned his defeat into amodern sacrifice in 1389overlydid not concernlaterof Serb publicists identity, either Serbia afew years later hewas murdered. army andfled onthebattlefield across the Danube.Whenhe later returned to with Napoleon’sdeal invasion in1812. The nextyear Karadjordj his abandoned Tsar gave somematerialsupport to Karadjordj,this theaterabandoned but to Russian sympathy for the Serbs during various defeats never ran very deep. The Slavism” before this time, andtheir behavior then andafterwards indicated that Karadjordj probably was notsurprised Ottomanthat centralauthorities elitethe local Among wasSerbian a farmer/landowner named Karadjordj. 41 40 39 38 The Ottomansthe creationas such actions helped hiscausewith of the For the centurybetween theNapoleonicageandnextgeneral European The factKaradjordjthat eitherignored orwas unaware ofLazar’smodel

Gerolymatos, p.156. West, p.520. 1389, As with there are manyKaradjordj’sof accounts uprising.SeeGerolymatos,143-145 pp. and Palairet, p.28. 39 The Balkans: Nationalism,War, andthe Great Powers, 1804-1999 38 41 40 This was no surprise, since the (NewYork: Viking,2000),p.12.

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 19 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 20 significant comprador class. According to Rebecca West, Janissary units invoked lands andOttoman Kosovo—and during the nineteenth centuryundiluted by a dispute among Democratic, Fascist, andCommunistnotionsaboutthe future. and Serbloyalties fractured inresponse to World Warand thethree-cornered II the Serbianprojectnational to larger European events. Inthe1940s both Greek 1914, whenuntil murderthe Austrian ofan Archduke forlinkedfirsttime the the interests ofoutsideforces. TheSerbs wouldhavenot similar experience a this wasstart, linked to thegeneralof status Ottoman power and, often, alsoto less intensewould andviolentonethan takeduring the1940s). placeFrom the amounted to a civil war throughout thelastdecades of the Ottoman eraa (albeit Greeksbut patina, a classical nationalism themselves suffered through what I finally destroyed theOttoman system. Foreign philhellenismgave Greek resist further concessions to it(andto other BalkanWorldpeoples) until War these were hostile toward the newGreek state and would helpthe Ottomans of Constantinople,served as administrators theSultan in theBalkans. Many of cosmopolitan urbanGreeks, after nicknamed “Phanariots” largely a Greek section with “Greece”resettled until there after the Treaty of Lausanne in1923. More “Ionia” These people would haveSea coast. or theBlack along contact little legitimacy. Many ethnicGreeks lived far from thenewcountryinwhathad been and geographicalGerman kings,political one with but fractures, and incomplete Serbchieftains were space, Greecenational a carvingout state,a became also continue topolitics andconflictsthat keep theregion roiled. At thesametime towardattitude defeat—are seminal worth notingbecausethey wouldaffect the Turks. Thedifferences betweenmovements—and thesenational nascent their grounds in1892. of in 1848-9 (Serbs alsoliked to remind Croats of their participation inAustria- did notfight inlarge numbersfor theAustrians againstthe Hungarian rebellion is noevidence any Serbs tookon thisoffer. them up Similarly, unlike Croats,Serbs rebelsto appealed Serbs to jointheminrevenge ofthedefeatof 1389, response to theSultan’s decision to dismantletheJanissaries in 1826. These Serbian imagery when they defeated an Ottoman army inKosovo in1831 in 43 42 The Serbdiaspora was muchmore nearbythe Greek—in than Habsburg • By 1830 Obrenovic andsome Serbs, like some Greeks, were free ofthe 5.

by marauding Ottoman troops onMay 29,1453. Church ofHagiaSophiaatthepointwhere itreportedly hadbeenstopped Kemal(Ataturk) —Greek priests resumed celebratingthe mass in the between Ottoman defeat inWorld War IandthetriumphofMustapha Empire. In1919—as Greek troops entered thecityduringinterregnum glories, lookedthe locals for their inspiration to theChristian Byzantine many GreekWhile foreign nationalists. Philhellenes praised classical The fallof Constantinopleto the Ottomans was thedefining defeat for West, p.841. Judah,p.279. The Serbs Were NotAlone 42 43 but there but of nationalism inspiredof nationalism by JohanGottfried Herder. For Herder and subsequent monarchs increasingly lashedtheir claims toand authorityto legitimacy flavors monarchical modernity. rivalry over which dynasty would leadSerbia into anewageof European-style engagedstruggle ina for had lesstothat authority defeatspast dowith with than Milos. From1903, thenuntilhe, his heirs, and scions of the Karadjordjevic family Ottomanan maintain garrison for anothergeneration.Obrenovic becamePrince empire. The new Serbian state included Nis notKosovo,but and Belgrade would the separate religious status thatconferred identity on non-Muslim peoples in the flow ofgreat power interests. century—as opposed to thetwentieth—this thiswas notlinked toand theebb what theirelitesnational shaped into asense of purpose, inthenineteenthbut invasionHungary’s of Serbia in1914). Serb victories and defeats were linked to in my viewthisisaminor key compared to the fellowphilologists over howto constructa“Serbo-Croatian” andcreatelanguage songs of 1389 while engaged inadiscussion/debate withCroatian andother Serbia’s milletstatus) andclaimsto “oldSerbia”—Kosovo. with theHabsburgs while they focused on disputes with Bulgarians (who envied Obrenovicconstructive, princesmaintained in particular friendly ifnot relations latter province were splitover whether to jointherevolution of 1848. Overall, controlonly after 1878), ratherof Vojvodina.the richlands than Serbsin the toward Macedonia, Kosovo, andBosnia (which came under Austro-Hungarian century. is Serbia.” as markers of Serbianrights—wherever thereSerbian isa grave, hewrote, “there courseshort bythe imperialcut He raised theOttomanconquest. theolddefeats bypartition AustriaRussia. and Serbiashould advance to theAdriatic,resuming as finished and declared that Serbs had to lead Balkan peoplesinresistance to expansionpolitical in theBalkans. foroutline (1812-1874), an his Nacertanje, published Serbianidentity and to thepoetryandargumentsintellectuals.of nationalistic 1844 In Illya Garasanin traditionalism” nations measured theirvalue andstrength. shortcomings and malevolentacts were thestandards against which nascent and elsewhere, thesetaughttales peopletheevils of neighboring Others, whose who provided their versions of stories.nationals Unfortunately, intheBalkans to give the newly literate something to read, philologiststurnedto historians, purpose. building Literacy wasof identity. theagentnational Whenitcametime reconstructed and re-grammared by philologistsconscious of their nation- lead to a communityof fulfilled nations.From Germanywere languages east, of eachpeoplewas to define itself fullysupposedly inamannerthat would not religionpublicists, language, national defined a people,andthepurpose The ethos of that era emerged from therevolutions of 1848, after which In 1830grantedthe Sultan the Serbian Orthodox Churchof amillet, thestatus 46 45 44 This meshed wellpoetry of Vukwith thenationalistic Karadzic, who sang Garasaninsaw Habsburg power asgreaterOttoman, than so hedirected Serbs Among Serbs, this meant theSerb Orthodox Church and its “defensive

Ibid.,pp.343-6. SeealsoJudah, pp.57-60. Myfriend Obrad Kesic is oneofthose who see a larger Pan-Slavist program inGarasanin’s work,but Allcock,p.348 46 This would remaincry abattlefor Serbianintonationalists the21st 44 oftending to thememories of 1389 gave way—often willingly— Nacertanje’s 45 Garasaninwrote offtheOttomanEmpire greater Serb orientation.

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 21 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 22 lost—a defeat—whichlost—a shelinkedAlexanderassassination ofKing the with tolerance amongSerbs. Rebecca West interpreted his murder as anopportunity murdersdefines series a ofpolitical defeats as of liberalism multi-ethnic and designed to explore thepossibilityofaBalkan federation. Bulgarian Communist leader (and Comintern-days comrade) Georgei Dimitrov Tito’s effort shortly after World Warto II convinceto Stalin supporthistalks with obstacle to Serbian ambitions).Ashadow of the panBalkan project reemerged in and, therefore, defacto independence—in an effort to create Christian a local the Sultan’s decision1870 in to grantBulgaria its own Orthodox Exarchate— against theOttoman Empire. His idea (so assassination in1868thatdid killed lead Romanians, Hungarians, andperhaps Bulgarians inawar ofliberation sought Great Power support to create apowerful Serbianarmy with which to destiny. Milos’ssonMichaelObrenovic (reigned 1839-1842, and 1860-1868) the dominant flavors of nationalism stressed martial virtue and national someWhile liberalSea. intellectuals looked to EnglandFranceand as models, reinventionsof thecommunal goingonelsewhere fromto theBaltic theBlack European project—public opinionsomeday couldshiftonceagain. separate,events but—dependingon economics, and even given of the appeal the of status asvillainthe1990s has reinforced Montenegrin desires to remain to absorption by Yugoslavia andthenagain to independence. Serbia’s current achieved theirindependence.From 1878-2006 they wouldmove frommonarchy the Montenegrins sparkedBalkan-wide a uprising against the Ottomans and and Croats duringtheearly stagesofthe1992-5 war inBosnia.Inthe1870s Polje,warriorhas shapeda ethos thesharpendofwhich was feltby Muslims been fully conquered by theOttomans. Thisvictory,the defeatnot Kosovoat other Slavs (avantlettre).la historyphysicaland ofspiritual Serbsdefiance shouldlead to Piedmont for be his ownresistancepeople’s stubborn to theOttoman conquest. Wreath”Mountain celebrated both theSerbs’ choice of heroic defeat in1389 and Njegos, BishopandPrinceinMontenegro (reigned 1830-1851). His song“The people are andwhat they shouldhave remains open. second version of Yugoslavia Southof the Sava fell apart. thequestion of who the regionnations inhabit wouldthe region plague the 1990s, untilwhen the separate histories.national The question of whether a single peopleor several intellectualspursued thecontradictory aims of creating linguisticunity and a south Slavic—Yugoslav—identity. Karadzic, the Croat Ludovit Gaj,andother Djindjic clearly was muchmore popularindeaththanhe hadbeenwhile alive. wouldsimilar emotions—judgingfrom unleash themassivehis funeralat turnout 1934. Karadjordjevic—another allegedly progressive monarch—at Marseillesin an anticipationofthefuture.” Petrovic Njegos gave theKosovo myth “…amore optimisticcharacter; became it 50 49 48 47 Michael’s assassination continuesto inspire astrain ofthought that Serbianand Montenegrin variantsfit well ofnationalism the patternwithin The tribesofMontenegro are Serbs who pride themselves onnever having Meanwhile, theglories of defeat in1389 were revisited by Petar Petrovic

50 The killing of Serbia’s The killing pro-EU Prime Minister ZoranDjindjic in2003 West, p.536. VladimirDedijer, pp.62-65andBideleux Jeffries, Allcock,p.260,Judah, BideleuxandJeffries, p,474. The Road to Sarajevo 48 According to Tito-eraintellectual Vladimir Dedijer, 49 (NewYork: SimonandSchuster, 1966,p.253. The Balkans , p.474. 47 For him, the defeatfailed. Alexander Obrenovic’s profligacy,weakness, marriage, unpopular anything to dowiththedefeat suffered four years earlier. events of1389 and thetrek of the Vojvods in 1690. There was nomentionof outpouring ofliterature onpatrioticthemes,often andpainting highlightingthe greatdefeat now were added tohouse’s ofarms. therulingcoat References topeppered thebattle speeches and declarations, andsymbols ofthe bylegitimacy celebrating the 500thanniversary defeatof the Kosovoat Polje. and would beattachedto thecatastrophe of1915-16. to be heroic and did not enjoy thepanegyricsaccompanied that 1389 or 1690 in 1889, abdicated infavor ofhisson,Alexander. Thedefeatof 1885 washeld not reactedMilan nation. byhe remainedbut himself king, making discredited and, badlylosing tarnishing hisfamily’s and standardas legitimacy bearer ofthe during thewars thatdominated rest ofthecentury: needed growth,The communitythat given wouldthe enormouslossesit suffer 3.0 ratemillion—a three times that of Britain andFrance on thesameperiod. routes. transportationwould that tradelocal enable andtravel—skewed railroad goods through the Balkans on their way elsewhere providingthan about Competing priorities of greatpower investors—who cared moremoving about Bosnia-Herzegovinaof theAustro-Hungarianunder therule Finance Ministry. rural,and railroad constructionlaggedbehindother areas, mostprominently problemsboth remain relevant earlythe in 21stcentury.Serbia was largely a backdrop of economic backwardness as wellas thememory of ancient defeat— completed inKrusevac, Lazar’scapitalin1389,andatKaradjordj’s burialsite. This project did not come toheroic fruition,but architecture andsculpture were in preparationmuseum for temple a to of Kosovothe battlefield at built be Polje. 1389, at anexhibition inRome. It was moved toof themainhallBelgrade’s national Croatiansculptor IvanMestrovic displayedpresentation a the hero of Obilic, of inwhichthe lands all Serbslive. Kosovo remainedgreat1911, the In onetarget. outcome of the wars of the 1870s convinced Serbianthey nationalists couldunite became king,endingtheinter-dynastic rivalry. dream ofavenging theancientdefeatKosovo at Polje. 1903. RebeccaWest claimedoneofhissinswashe took that from Serbs their and perceived subservience to Austria-Hungary ledto his bloody overthrowin Obrenovic efforts to tiethemselves totriumphs ofarchetypal thespiritual On June28, 1889 the Obrenovic dynasty attempted to shore upitssagging The nextObrenovic went prince,Milan, to war againstBulgaria in1885, 56 55 54 53 52 51 • • Meanwhile, from 1878 to 1914 the Serbiangrew population from 1.7 to The Serbianproject national of the late nineteenth century proceded against Ottoman decline, Austria’s catastrophic defeat by Prussia in 1866, andthe

55 Palairet, p. 165 Allcock,pp.42-3. Ibid.,p.330. Judah,p.69. West, p.551. Judah,p.68. 275,000 Worldin War 150,000mobilized men)plus from (40% ofall I typhus); 15,000 theBalkanin wars similar number from of1912-13a (plus 52 Petar Karadjordjevic 51 This led to an 53 56 54

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 23 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 24 specter of1389 and ofHabsburgcontrol over Serbs inBosnia.AthisGavrilo trial, should have provoked more serious considerationof therisks in the of rubbing hindsightjust is not it to better suggest staffworkadviceand from the field decision as avoidableas itwas provocative. Inthecontextof thetimeandplace, his wife!) onJune28,1914, the anniversaryof Kosovo of the battle Polje,was a the Krajina, andwherever elseonecouldsay “here isSerbia.” fold nationalist notonlytheir modernist, Kosovoin Bosnia, also co-nationals but or its hostilesecuritypolicies.For Serbianit wasnationalists, timeto includein pork products) War”between Belgrade Viennaand (thelatestseries ina of tradingtensions over generalsother officials.Atand during the1906-9 the sametime, commercial “Pig violentprogramswith the approval sprungupwith or leadership ofSerbian plight of co-nationalsintheDualMonarchy. Severalorganizationsnationalist Petersburg—hadbetween ViennaandSt. shifted muchSerbianattention to the and theannexationprovince ofthat in1908, which didmuchto heighten tensions of Bosnia-Herzegovinaoccupation by thenewly hyphenated Austria-Hungary— ownsthe word “Macedonia”and who Slavs Macedonian are remains unresolved. restrictand authority Serbianin hisYugoslavia.influence The questionof who received their own Church from Titoas partof his effort to communal balance authority over Macedonian identity. At theend of the 1950s Macedonian Slavs whichto in theOttoman theSerb Millet, system gave Serbianhierarchs clerical religious—at thistimetheMacedonianOrthodox Church remained subservient and Bulgaria fought over Macedonian territory. The Serb dog in this fight was During thesecondBalkanof Macedonians. the identity and War in 1913 Serbia what untilthenhad been largely aGreek-Bulgarian struggle over Macedonia byAustria-Hungary. Serbian forces conquered also Skopje, involvingSerbs in the stainof1389. out” 1912-13 Serbia finally gained control of the Kosovo Polje “wiping battlefield, nations orethnicitieslived. 60 59 58 57 The decision by Archduke Franz Ferdinand to go to Sarajevo (and to take 6. The Balkanwars distracted attentionfrom thefactbythat the thistime 1913 Until Serbiapossessed onwhichno lands significantmembersofother • •

inundation. long-term exodus of Serbs from Kosovo inthewake of ethnic demographic the endofacohesivewith along Serbiancommunity intheKrajina and a Thousands of Serbs inBosniaandCroatiaduring thewars of the 1990s, are counted; More inWorld thanamillion Warwhen II, concentration campvictims disease andanother25,000Montenegrins; Palairet, pp.98-104. West, p.13. SeePalairet, p.330. Allcock,pp.155-158. 1915—Apotheosis ofTriumphant Defeat 60 Austria-Hungary failed to punishSerbia for either its low prices 57 59 The Serbs wanted to occupyan ideablocked Albania, 58 This wouldthe Balkan changewith wars. During to make territorialconcessions toBulgaria. Belgrade, unwillingto give the up and Bulgaria into thewar.side SomeontheAlliedhopedSerbiawould willing be spiritual victory andanecessarynationalsacrifice. new myth ofSerbian acatastrophicdefeat, retreatwouldthat beembraced asa their tracks. However,this victory was only theprelude to whatwould become a stop Austro-Hungarian invaders (and theirofCroatiancontingent troops) in the Serbs took advantageof better leadership and knowledge oftheground to forVienna hadbeenplanning August sometime.In and again in October 1914 sacrifice spiritual moreand held itsown than against wasit assault an clear of Kosovo.out unity. and his own deed, which he said was necessary to advance thecauseof south Slav Princip—the assassin—spoke of the connection between the sacrifice of 1389 242-7. in Serbian identity. underscored theconnectionbetween physical defeatcommitment and spiritual The campednear multitude themedievalPatriarchate of Pec, asacred site that carrying theirdeadmonarchskings, Nemanja their livingwith along ones. defeat over somethingmore catastrophic andlesslikely to overcome. themselves andtheir army. overone. Theyspiritual a fought onlyand focusedaction stalling a on saving Petar, Alexander, andtheothers actually decided to chooseearthlyan kingdom triumph. Although Rebecca West portrayed Serbia asfightingstand,” “itslast sufferhistoric, an disastrous physicalsacrifice for thesake ofeventualspiritual Polje,its commanders leading to consider whether Serbiashould standand also joinedwhat amounted to thenationinretreat. Serbian officer noted that priests, teachers, students, andwomen and children his son andregent—and Serbia’sand militarycommanders politicalin tow. A October Serbianforces wereretreat, infull Petar, withtheagedKing Alexander— on Serbialeft thelatter that no chanceof staving off disaster. By themiddle of closest presence was atenuous outpostinThessalonikistill-neutral Greece. intentions knownthere was noway forto theallies domuchfor Serbia—their sympathy for thetroublecame next. that from their defense against his failingofferedon Gallipoli, assault Serbia no decision to jointheother side itwouldmeant notdraw Ottoman forces away “recalcitrant,”“stubborn,” and “unreasonable.” Churchill, Bulgaria’sangry that gains of 1913 refused, leading Winston Churchill to Serbiacall “obdurate,” In 1915 boththeAlliesandCentralPowers wanted to lure Greece, Romania the unexpectedAt first, Serbia, happened. expecting to make anotherheroic 68 67 66 65 64 63 62 61 At thesametime, Serbs gathered upthecoffins of some of the medieval The withdrawing army passed directly throughKosovoat thebattlefield Bulgaria joinedGermanyAustria-Hungary and three-sided ina assault 61

Another conspirator spoke ominouslythe need aboutto drive Albanians David Mitrany, West., pp.583-87. Glenny, p.334. West, p.585. Allcock,pp.99-100. Winston Churchill, Judah,p.149. Gerolymatos, pp.40-1. 62 The great wars twentiethof the first half the of century were on. 68 The Effecttheof War inSoutheasternEurope The World Crisis 66 In other words, In they chose the limitedof status , vol. pp.485-487,493.Seealsovol. II, VI, pp. 339-48.. 63 In any In case,onceBulgaria madeits 64 (NewYork: Howard Fertig, 1936), pp. 67 65

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 25 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 26 IN: IndianaUniversity Press, 2006),p.48. to Jovanovic’s version of theseeventsreferred and to theSerbs“nation as a “most vivid” Serbian memory of thewar. in 1929) asreferring to the“Bezanja,” adisorderly, endless flightwas that the (and would bejailedfortime when a Alexander King assumeddictatorial powers Agrarianleft-wing leading whopolitician Socialist hadparticipated intheretreat the effectof theWar in southeastern Europe. with muchmore disappointing results inthe1940sand1990s. became something many Serbs felt they deserved; they would lookfor it again for the heroism of their Serbian allies.International respect for Serbian sacrifice unaware of Serbian treatment of in 1913-1914—expressedAlbanians admiration estimated 275,000 soldiers 800,000 and civilians, part inthevictorious of1918.Serbiacampaign Inall, suffered the deathsof an joined the allied side, the Serbian army joined the alliesatThessaloniki andtook in North Africa,where they refitted andprepared to strike back. evacuated to Corfu by aBritishwarship in March 1916. 120,000 went to Bizerte Albanians oncethey regained control oftheprovince after theWar. driver’scab Albanian “hatred” ofSerbs for theirharsh treatmentof Kosovar to see eachother asirreconcilably hostileOthers.Rebecca West quotedethnic an first organized conflict between twowould communitiesthat increasingly come Serbs after they hadtaken Kosovo in1913, were merely avenging poor treatmentof atthehands ethnicAlbaniansof the haggardas wasit as defeated Ramet—believes or—withSabrina Albanians the created havoc.for WhetherAlbanians one blames suffering inflicting armyon an shortages of food and othertyphus,attackssupplies, byirregulars Albanian their influenceinthe 1930s. 150) a facthelped theNazis that gain some traction intheregion when they usedtrade concessions to increase relations between theGermans and theSerbian(«almost to population friendship,» according to Mitrany—p. had considered aseparate peacewiththeCentral Powers. of seamless Serbian heroism. and nocivil war between Serbs of varyingsullied thememory ideologicalbents collaborationistregime kowtowed to theoccupiers’administrationin Belgrade, away”) entered canon.Incontrastthe national to theWorld War IIexperience, no evacuationof Dunkirk. The plaintive song“Tamo Daleko” (“Over There, Far stirred bydefeat thistriumphant somewhat resembled Britishpride in the than any othercombatant in World War I. as apercentagecasualties and apercentageof itspopulation offighting-agemen 76 75 74 73 72 71 70 69 In 1936, David Mitrany gave pride of place to this heroic defeat inhis study of addition, ChurchillIn aside, many inFrancecertainlyBritain—almost and The retreat of 1915-16 became aniconic triumph of sacrifice. Memories The remnants ofthis exodus—to includetheoldKingandhis son—were The retreatmoved from Kosovo intowhere Albania, theharsh winter,

SabrinaP. Ramet, Ibid.,p.415. Jovanovic Mitrany, TheEffect oftheWar inSoutheastern Europe. West, pp.768-9. However, theGerman administrative hand was muchlighter than inWorld War II,leadingto decent According to Judah,p.100 Judah,p.100. West, pp.1000-1. The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building andLegitimation,1918-2005 73 (West dismissed rumors Princethat Alexander 76 Mitrany devoted a longappendix 69 75 theseincidents amounted to the Hequoted DragoljubJovanovic, a 72 and overalland suffered more 74 ) 71 70 OnceGreece (Bloomington, international forblame thoseevents andfor accompanying atrocities. Afilm of collapse Yugoslavia andby their having becometheobjectsof widespread visit inOctober 1994.Thiswaswhen atime many Serbsfelt victimized by the to me while Iwas inBelgrade during the 1990s, and particularly during a earlier time“when the banneroftheCrescent appeared onthehorizon.” Jovanovic himself claimed aconnectionbetweendefeat thistriumphant andthe greatas a likemourningis silent—silent thePassion ontheCrossJerusalem.” at like 1389: “…We were laid low onearthwebut weptwe notatall, died in silence Devetcherskian A.M. (Mitrany’sto spelling) make the1915-1916 Bezanja sound Kosova andembracing theEuropean Union.Intellinghis Jovanovic tale, quoted see nocontradictionpoliticians insimultaneously opposingtheindependence of suggesting nooneshouldbesurprisedcontemporarythat Serbianpro-Western onlynot that were nationalists caughtmyths—ain thenational up precedent perpetually indefeat anddiaspora.” into to Macedonia dotowhatplace that Han settlersare doingtobut Xinjiang, wherever they lived “here isSerbia.”Belgrade tried to move Serbian colonists chose todate usetheseminal to press into themindsofothercitizens that this “Vidovdan”matteredconstitution the fact lessthan the governmentthat course—June 28, theanniversaryof Kosovo of thebattle Polje.of The details the governmentkingdom promulgated ofthenew on—of constitution new a any senseofownership. “Serbs,kingdom ofthe a been Croats, Slovenes,”and onlybut the firstofthesefelt loveAlbanian affaironlyAmerica that with nowtois beginning fade.may It have attempts to annexproper Albania were blocked by Woodrowan Wilson, starting cohesivewith along Bosnian Muslims, and Slovene andCroatian Serbiannations. Adriaticwith newly along acquiredMacedonians, communitiesofAlbanians, dynasty was granted sway over an agglomeration thatincluded access to the German powerblunt quo of1919 shouldthestatusnothold).TheKaradjordjevic were expected by theFrench to administer large entitiesof capable helpingto Serbs—along Poleswith andRomanians—were thebenefactors of the peace (and Slovenes andCroats fought withtheAustro-Hungarian enemy.result, Asa in Versailles contrasted heroic their community’s sacrifices to the factthat replace Ottoman andHabsburg sovereignty intheBalkans. Serb representatives forgethowjust heroic was theirimageasthevictors in 1919 debated howto running asanon-stop loop. played on Belgrade television. While Iwas there in1994 it seemed almostto be (partly documentary)depictingtheheroismsacrifice andof1915-16 often was The impactofthese lasting events onSerbianidentity was brought home 79 78 77 For Serbhistory nationalists should have stopped in1921. That was when 7. The current internationalof Serbsunpopularity andSerbiamakes iteasy to

Ibid.,p.240ff. Ibid.,p.247. Ibid.,p.416andAppendix II. “Defeat” Beginsto Have aSourTaste 77 Jovanovic’s recollections demonstrated 79 78

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 27 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 28 geographic features. This seemed to create more ethnicresentmentcivicthan regional spacesto replace historically charged nameswithterms reflecting local dictatorial powers and attempted to encourage acivic identityby renaming assassinated Radic onthe floorofthefederal Alexanderparliament. thenassumed arrangement,only to haveshattered that in1928, whenSerbian a nationalist and aleadingopponentof the creation of Yugoslavia in1919, into a political He coaxed theimprisoned Radic,Stjepan head of the Croatianpeasant Party arrangementspolitical his Croatianwith critics—even asherepressed them. Serbian onwhich nationalism his throne depended and attempted to work out of territorial Domestically,entitlement. andpolitical Alexander played down the particularly theCroats—amade difficultby task Serbia’s celebration of its sense was tothe senseofdefeat assuage felt by othercommunitiesinhisKingdom— basked intheSerbs’ international prestige. Alexander Karadjordjevic’s problem and economicarrangements. Mussolini inItaly soon gave theWar’s losers prospects for alternative security controlled territories Inaddition,thecomingto they powerlost. hadjust of Hungary, who incentivehad little to play second fiddle to larger entities that trade corridor between thetwo countries. Czechoslovakiaoffered Belgradepartnership increating a transportationa and economic zone subsidiary to theliberalpowers. In 1919, the newly minted the Powers quickly realized thatthiswould notwork. generalin Thrace more closely resembled thepost-1995 vice-regalsystem, but Teschen come to mind). A multi-ethnic provincial administration under a French example,between Greeks andTurks in1923) and plebiscites (Silesia and dissatisfied communities produced experimentstransfers inpopulation (for to modernity andprosperity. In the 1920s,restivenesscontinuing among in civic democracies borderswithin unchangeable is theonly possibleroad lines of the post-1995 single-minded insistence integrationthat multi-ethnic established apermanentorder in 1919. There wasthe along sentiment little was shattered by economic catastrophe, few heldtothey theillusionthat had the Franco-Britishcracked alliance andthepost-Locarno (1925) optimism teleologicalconfidence of current transatlanticauthorities and publicists.As vibrant,with attractive Fascist andCommunistalternatives, andsolacked the Tito’s Federation). post-Yugoslav arrangements (which have continuedto shift after the deathof future when various inter-communal disputes onceagain shufflecontemporary in the1940s and again inthe1990s, and itshould not surprise anyone in the never was aunifiedcivic state.should have It surprised no onewhen itfellpart this failed to significantly shift the ethnic balance. later) towarnew a that claim regionthe in wasprevented onlyby Yugoslav fingerprints, led Rebeccanationalists’ West (whose visitwas only three years Barthieu alsowashad both Croatianthat a plot killed), and Macedonian identity, somuchthatAlexander himselfwas murdered in1934. 82 81 80 Alexander’s assassinationinMarseilles(French Foreign Minister Philippe Serbia’s dominantfigure focused on internal consolidation even ashe toThis isnot saythere that waseffortno to createcentral a Europeaneast and The interwar democratichad to compete“international community”

Ibid.,p.177 Mitrany, p.260-2. Allcock,p.162 82 This was blocked by Austria and 80 Whatbecame“Yugoslavia” 81 of the1866 Habsburg ausgleich, dividing Bosniabetween Serbiaand Croatia. successor,regime leda curried thatCroatfavor by attemptingYugoslava variant in which Yugoslavia was aSerbian-dominated entity. Prince Paul, Alexander’s half century. 16 andsetinmotionserial“defeats” wouldthat accumulate inlayers for thenext for Serbswere that muchlessspirituallythe experience satisfyingthan of 1915- “forbearance” 37, #1,September 2009, pp.665-692(andespecially 672-278). Slavic Review Ferdinand andaprofessor Belgradeat University, repeated demands he had Serbs andAlbanians. characterize too many narratives andbehaviors involving relations between memories wouldthat feed the destructive, visceralcontinues tohostility that them to reside inside a “Yugoslavia.” Atrocities committed by bothsides created 1944 when they cameto realize thepostwaronce again settlement would force perhaps 100,000 Serbs lefttheprovince. round. Anestimated 10,000 Serbs died in theviolenceand—in1941 alone— to therecord ofhostilityandviolencethatdominated theperiod. exist inBosniabetween Serbs andCroats, if only asarelatively minor exception this view. However, itisworthpockets notingthat ofanti-Fascist cooperation did identity.national the 1990s InCroatianPresident FranjoTudjman certainly held (and treat)the atrocities this state’s than as lessimportant reflection ofgenuine was something Serbs continueto harp on to this day,many but Croats treated 11th centuryandextended intoits writ of thisregime Bosnia.Thebrutality organized“Ustashe”) the firstindependentCroatianstate the least sinceat epic poemsaboutKosovo Polje asthey went down to defeat. lines) andshattered the first Yugoslavia. West noted Yugoslavsthat recited the period (in exile, the family would divide—and remain divided—along rivalblood invasionchaos inducedtheGerman The ensuing finished Karadjordjevic thatthe with theGermans,which led other Serbianpoliticians andgenerals to revolt. foughtto prevent their marginalization. 1941, In Paul’s ministers looked to deal 1990s wouldthat againhave disadvantagedif theyMuslims Bosnian had not agreement (“Sporazum”)would similar initiativebecome thebasisofa inthe The interests—and existence—of wereBosnian Muslims largely ignored. This The crises of 1939-1941 divided Serbian elites and ended the short period 8. 87 86 85 84 83 Atthe sametime,Serbs in Kosovo and ethnicAlbanians fought theirsecond What was adefeat for Serbs was a victory for Croats. Localfascists (the

SeeHelenaZdravkovic-Zonta, «Narratives of Victims and Villainsin Kosovo,» Judah,p.141. SeeEmily Greble«When Balic, CroatiaNeeded Serbs: NationalismandGenocide in Sarajevo, 1941-2,» Ibid.,p.1145. West, p.2. , vol. LXIII,1,Spring2009, pp.116-138. One Serb’s Victory isAnotherSerb’s Defeat. From World War IIThrough theTito Years: 83 . When war did come once more itproduced immediate defeats 87 In 1944, InVasa Cubrilovic, one oftheplotters againstFranz 86 SomeroseAlbanians in revolt in 84 Nationalities Papers 85 , vol.

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 29 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 30 drew internal borders so as toas many put Serbs aspossibleintherepublics the dominantcommunity. He executed Draza Mihailovic, theChetnik leader, intention to rein in Serbian pretensions to reclaiming their previous status as of suffering repeated “defeat.” future policies, and how often those policies would refresh Serbian perceptions underestimated was how often andhow intensivelywould thistask skew his a conscious effort to holddown residual Serbianpretentions. Whathe likely were theengine of his Chetnik opponents), Tito knew he would have to make the war ended. As Serbs were largest anddominant group thecountry’s (and Bosnian Muslim);thesefigures would runtheir various “home”regions once representing(except majornationalities eachofthecountry’s for and Albanian the various systemshad comebefore. that group Heassembled a of lieutenants statewould that of blueprints the adapt also identities but national subsume Yugoslavia, Tito was intent onreplacingthe Serb a Communist kingdom with while intheSovietUnion between the wars. Fromof hisinsertioninto thetime background wasidentity headoptedthe Stalinist than muchlessimportant and othermanifestations ofnationalistrecidivism. in the1990s of the nineteenth centurySerbian Radical party,name, the“Chetnik” of the subjectSerb defeat andvictimization in theTito years—and to therevival 1986 Memorandumof the Serbian Academyon ofArtsandSciences—alament Nacertanje (1844) throughof settlement 1919, thetriumphantonaheadto the dominated state. Their program existed as apointinthelineextending from the with Germans aswithTito’s Communist partisansintheir effort to restore a Serb- behaved or who theywith. dealt greaterthem a focuson theimplicationsofhow onsectarianidentitythan they What canwe donow?..We are agrain ofsandintheagitated global sea.” government to “save thepeopleandkeep themfrom destroying eachother… sounded more like France’sPetain Tsarthan Lazarwheninto hesaidcame fighters, and Communist partisans. GeneralNedic, thecollaborationist leader, those SerbsII who tookintosplit action collaborationists, royalist/nationalist Arts andSciencescarryforwardand help Serbianintonationalism theTito years. Cubrilovicthat noting would latermember oftheSerbian becomea Academy of resemble theSerbian-dominated kingdomcreatedVersailles. at is worthalso It Even by 1944, Cubrilovic likely understood postwarthat Yugoslavia would not majorities to suithis increasingly Russian-centered approach to identity politics. He praisedwind. for Stalin hispolicyofmoving minoritiesevenand titular made for years to “cleanse”thearea ofAlbaniansandotherminorities. Group oftheConference onYugoslavia (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2007),p.34 control. Ivalyo Ditchev hascharacterized Tito’s policies then andlater as aneffort minority status— of Croatiaand Bosnia-Herzegovina—where they were handicappedby their 91 90 89 88 From themomenthedefeated his Chetnik opponents,Tito madeclearhis Josip Broz “Tito”was His Croat/Slovene neither a Serb noranationalist. The royalistChetniks weresharedas theUstashe,but as brutal not with contrastIn to theiconic,unifiedSerbian trek of 1915,duringWorld War Cubrilovic adjusted hismessageto takeof theprevailing account political

Robert Bideleux andIanJeffries, Seeibid.,p.145. TheThree Ramet, Yugoslavias, p.132. Geert-Hinrich 91 Ahrens, and created and republicMacedonian a independent ofSerbian Diplomacy The Balkans: a Postwar History on 90 Over time, they becameaslikely to cooperate the Edge: Containment of Ethnic (New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 345. conflict and Minorities 88 89 Working The creation ofMacedoniawas followed by thegrantingautocephalousof an self-destructivewouldthat nationalism tear help theregionin the1990s. apart inidentitypoliticswhilebalance a maintained hewas alive,also stoked but the not. the Chetniks were fascist mono-ethnic or heroic ormulti-ethnic, anti-fascist, or wouldanathema rankleSerbian sensibilities. Serbs continueto debate whether apparent equationof Fascist Croatiaand (Serb) royalistYugoslavia asequally Croats) would fester through thewars of the 1990s. In addition, the Partisans’ treatmentof Serbs inCroatia andBosnia-Herzegovina (by Muslims aswellas for retribution against wartime atrocities, hardbut feelings concerning the collaborationistZagreb Archbishop Alois Stepinac satisfied somedemands agent ofYugoslav life. toin Serbs instill asensetheythat were“other” rather an the special,active than against his nephewIvan when Slobodan Milosevic ibid. challengedhis leadershipin1987.Ramet, Simon Fraser University inVancouver onJune24,2010. «Debate: anti-Fascism inSerbia,» peschanik.net June28(Vidovdan!), 2009. Globalization andFragmentationBetween falland thefact Croatian that Party bossVladimir Bakaric hadplayed an Serbswouldthat contribute to thelater destructionofYugoslavia.Rankovic’s communities. series a ofautonomistenabled movements variousthe country’s among ethnic 1966 lurched Yugoslavia’spendulum away political from centralization and made themistakeTito’s ofbugging private office. In any case,his removalin interests, becausehis power was comingto rivalTito’s, or because heallegedly attemptagainst Serbs”him on“leading LCY,the in to after becalled Kardelj’sStalin). with thesplit wifeassassination an blamed ideologist of the Leagueof Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY, astheParty came some of them felttoward Edvard Kardelj, theSlovene who was self-styled community. of restoringgoal meshed thenationalists’ with rulebydominant thecountry’s sawin theinnercircle—hishim as“their”man predilection toward centralism Communist centralizer ratherpersonal orientation, in nationalist than Serbia gained but control over Yugoslavia’s security organs. Even though he was since the earliest days oftheanti-Fascist struggle. After the War henotonly ran major blowto SerbianAlexanderstatus. communal RankovicTito hadbeenwith powerful Serb inthecountryadevelopmentrecognized byYugoslavs all asa since theSultanhadfirstgranted Serbia itsMillet. nullified theauthority of Serbian clerics over Macedonian soulsthathadexisted Macedonian Orthodox Church, anod to Ottoman notions of identity-by-faith that Tito’s policiesamounted toseries a of “defeats”for Serbinterests that To besure, Tito’s harshofCroatianpunishment Fascists the allegedly and 97 96 95 94 93 92 In turn,these foreshadowedamong Serbs thekindofnationalism andnon- is debatedstill It whether Rankovic fellhe wasbecause too devoted to Serbian Meanwhile, internaljockeying Communistpolitical removed themost 93

Italsobrought to prominence Petarwhose Stambolic, role intheremovalof Rankovic would rebound p.218. Ramet, Judah,p.143. grateful Iam to Professor John V. A.Fine, Jr. forconference ourdiscussionduringa on thispoint at For onesuchdebate, seetheexchange betweenVuckovic Slobodan andOliveraMilosavljevic, Ivalyo Ditchev, «The Eros of Identity» inDusanJ.BjelicandObrad Savic, eds., 95 His popularityamongSerbs contrasted with themistrust atleast 97 92 (Cambridge:MITPress, 2002),p.236. 96 a likelya referenceto Rankovic. Balkan asMetaphor: 94 Serbs

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 31 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 32 “Communist” parties) over“Communist” oldSerbiantoclaims Dalmatia betweensquabbles (many nationalists inside the Serbianand Croatian province’s name(“Kosovo andMetohija”). “Metohija”(a term Kosovolinking to theSerbianOrthodox Church) from the and—in adecisionSerbiathat does stillnotrecognize—to thedropping of concessions todemands for ethnicAlbanian wider rights to self-expression riots in Kosovo spread into largelyparts of Macedonia, leadingto Albanian burdened by theconstraintof thelargerof beingpart Yugoslav entity.1968, In and hinted that perhaps Serbs and Serbia might be better off if they were not Dobrica Cosic wrote irredentismethnic Albanian about complaining pamphlets Republican1965. least sinceat status autonomy byin Kosovo. Albanians Ethnicpress Albanian organsfor hadcalled Serbs inBosnia-Herzegovina. permit citizensto declare themselvesin thecensusof1971 angered “Muslims” growthof insecurityamongSerbs intheKrajina.Meanwhile, Tito’s decision to General Franjo Tudjman, who would leadCroatia to independence—and the to prominencein theCroatian ofnationalists outside it—toand party include assertivenessnationalist inCroatia.The next few years witnessedthecoming roleimportant purging in him 2008. that they could bedefeated there aswell asinKosovo. atrocitiesof Muslim againstSerbs drawingin Bosnia, attention toSerbian a sense VukDraskovic, royalist a novelist who wouldinto turn wrotepolitician, a stories system heldtogether by fragile,revolving state andLCY leaderships. Ominously, increasedagitation nationalist intheprovince thecontextdecentralizedof a likely wereto asimportant thisasany inter-communal persecution, from Kosovo, presumably by ethnicAlbanians. Serbiaratcheted Serbsthat complaints up Montenegrins and weredriven being attacked the Constitution of 1974. power. control of the localParty structure andof the “commandingheights” of provincial ownership of the ancestral Ontheother heartland. hand,Kosovar Albanianstook over resources and Serbs inKosovo andSerbia would feel they were losing remainingto Yugoslavia,Serbs Vojvodinain Serbia and proper wouldsquabble two provinces,virtuallystatus a to equal theexistingrepublics. During thelife decentralization. The constitution of 1974 gave Vojvodina and Kosovo, Serbia’s by Titothe Great himself,but continued toMan acquiesceinadecisivetoward tilt 105 104 103 102 101 100 99 98 During Tito’sdecade oflife last after and hisdeathin1980 Cosic bitterly The fermentyears ofthe followingfallthe of Rankovic—which included perhapsWhat angered Serbianthe mostwasnationalists thedemandfor

Judah,p.79. For example, andJeffries, p.534. Bideleux SeeAhrens, p.307, for numbersthatremain controversial. SonjaBiserko, «Dobrica Cosic and theLastdefense of Serb Nationalism,» Pescanik.net, November 11, pp.233-4. Ramet, Ibid.,p.529. BideleuxandJeffries, SeeRusinow, Yugoslavia: ObliqueInsights andObservations, p.140 The Balkans , p.528. 98 ledtoin Serbiabacklash nationalist and a 102 He, other andpressnationalists, organs in 99 TheSerbiannovelistand nationalist 100 103 Poor economic conditions 105 101 —led to purges led 104 but be better off in asmaller, cohesive Serbianstate in thefailing than polyglot to havemore adrewSerbs incendiarytheconclusionthat impact, would Ustashe atrocities. on to warnthe thatthreat of Serbian assimilationinSerbs inCroatia wasto akin from thefirst Serbian uprising in 1804 to theuprising of 1941.” The authors went historical defeatanythan experienced in theliberationwars waged by Serbia and culturalgenocide oftheSerbianin Kosovo population andMetohijaworseis a “generalprocess of disintegration”physical,“the that claimed and legal,political, the Serbianluminaries at Academy ofArtsandSciences attacked Yugoslavia’s to aheadin1986. A“memorandum” written by MihailoMarkovic andother catastrophic defeat. Nikola Pasic, would come tofrom the“Macbeth blame Pozerevac” for Serbia’s Milosevic Serbia’s greatestsince politiciannineteenth centurynationalist Westerners tend to mistakestatus.” as“final Dobrica Cosic, who oncehadtermed scars and dissatisfactionscontinue to that threaten thecurrent regionalquiet was wrong. Serbs would sufferstring ofdefeats a inthecontextof communal and never agree to recognize anything. TheWorldtiredget will ofus.” war criminal,declared “we that Serbsbe brazen, shall determined, inflexible, through.Plavsic, Biljana aBosnianSerb leaderinthe1990s and aconvicted state they wanted to create. and dictateSerbsall that intheYugoslav spacebeincludedinthe“pure”Serbian tothey understandthat achieve couldnotboth theruinofYugoslav system Meanwhile,not care muchabout. theauthorsof the 1986 “Memorandum” failed causes nationalist inCroatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, andKosovo that he really did dangerous implicationsfor a figure who found himself forced to dealwithSerbian ricketyrevolving system merelyto causedthething comecrashing down—with in their positions. His efforts to gain control of a majorityof votes in Yugoslavia’s Kosovo to grab power. first publicized, tier Serbian politician/”banker,”the Memorandumabout said little when itwas Yugoslavs would countthemselves as better off. Slobodan Milosevic, asecond- what you askfor; Yugoslavia would fallneither but Serbsapart normostother Yugoslavia. Events of the nextfew years would prove thedangers of getting This document, likelyThis document, crafted withthe1844designed Nacertanje inmindbut came status The discontentof Serbian their community’s with nationalists 9. 108 107 106 thepaladinsof Serbian nationalismdid not thinktheir projectIn short, Milosevic andmoreSerbian authentic recidivists failed to seethecontradiction

Biserko, op. cit. p.321. Ramet, pp.319-323. Seeibid.,pp.4,158,and Ramet, Setting SerbiaUp for Defeat 107 but in 1987 butwould useastageddefense ofSerbianrights in 106 108 She

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 33 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 34 fromNATOand US officials, 78percent of Serbs responding torun bypoll a the were shockedWestern at treatmentdespitevillains; of themas warnings clear terms ofeconomysocial development. and Serbs were usedtoheroes being and institutions. benefitted from aseparationmoved that themtoward Western markets and them to deny thefactof defeat—lose they did.Slovenia andCroatianaturally had muchto loseand—despite whatbelieveI common tendency isa among exceptapart to make threerelevant points to theme of “defeat.” the Serbs First, offensive inKosovo. armyan believeI waseager toand intact fightto resistthreatened a NATOground Serbiandefeats inbothplaces, furtive,than limited supportto Serbs inCroatiaor Bosnia,quietly accepted He quickly capitulated to Slovenia’s secession from Yugoslavia, never gave more by Belgrade studentsandintellectuals. previously couldbecounted on to counter (with disdain) the street noises made townthe supportofsmall had lost working classes andrural workers who viewed as internationalaggression. In2000 Milosevic did not recognize he that united thebombing fact, In personal appeal.against thenation what most Serbs againstassault Serbia and Serb forces inKosovo in1999 had burnished his presidential electionin2000 was predicatedNATO’snotion that ona aerial broughtin 1996almost that himdown.His decision tounnecessary riskan He learned nothing from his mismanagement of an effort electionfraudat local defeat upondefeat amongSerbs throughout theoldfederal space. dominateof Yugoslavia all pointless processa enabled piled that of amputation Bosnia overin Izetbegovic.leader Alija theobjectionsofBosniak Hisfailure to witness his centralrole inforging withUSofficials the 1995 Dayton agreement into theindispensible partneroftheso-called“international community”— simultaneously to replaceTito asregionalstrongman neither personal legitimacynor a sense of purpose. communal He wanted maneuveringminded political succeeded in dividing othersprovidedbut far.Milosevic wasstrategica without tactician political a vision—his narrow- to whatoriginally hadbeenaquarrelleaders afraidamong to pushthingstoo overvotes the ofMontenegro, Kosovo,Vojvodina and injected centrifugalfinality least 1984,Milosevic’s sinceatbut had beenbuilding that seizure ofcontrol «Milosevic’s Motiveless Malignancy,» Pescanik.net, March 11,2009. in theregion duringWorld War II (for example, by allowing thecreation ofthe Croatian fascist state). the internationaleffortnegotiating inCroatiaon thegrounds his thatfellow «Germans» had behaved abominably 113 112 111 110 109 toThis theplace is not rehash theoft-toldof how tale the Federation fell analysis,the final In Milosevic Slobodan was more incompetentthan brutal. Worse, Milosevic did not understandhewas that notparticularly popular. The proximate causeofYugoslavia’swas collapse crisis Sloveniabudget in a 10.

SeeAllcock., p.427 For other assessments of Milosevic’s operationalrecord, p. 495 seeAllcock,andSrdja Popovic, Ahrens, Diplomacy on the Edge, p. 253. Krajina Serbs objected to the Austrian Ahrens’ leadership of Judah,pp.196-197. Allcock,p.430 1990s andSerbianSelf-Delusion Defeat andDenial:TheWars ofthe 113 Serbia, has foundother hand, the on fartherstuck itself in “east” 112 111 andcapitulated inJune1999 ratherpermit than 109 and make and himselfover 110 successor states basedoninternalTitoist-era administrative linesmarked victory anddefeat largely determined diplomacy, notthereverse. separatedthat of Kosova somenotall but from itsSerbianmasters, “kinetic” integrated democracyintegration, andmulti-ethnic andthemilitary campaign resultedbelied Westernthat partition ina rhetoric theinevitabilityabout of the “Republicof theSerb Krajina,” the four-year war inBosnia-Herzegovina that through thereversalfortunes ofmilitary first thatcreated andthendestroyed From Slovenia’s clever 10-dayagainst campaign the Yugoslav Army, National in theformer Yugoslav spacewere determined by militaryvictory anddefeat. perhaps, Montenegro’s independence,of all thecurrentarrangements political is demonstrably false. Outsideof Macedonia’s self-determination (sofar) and, believed theassaultwould nottake place. domestic news magazine NIN two weeks before NATO started bombing in1999 201. common to militaryandcivilnow conflictbut termed “war crimes.” Serbia, the internationalobservers whothe Serbs blamed forof activities the bulk once crises of1996and2000. errors regardingof judgment whether Milosevic wouldsurvive theelectoral functionary whodiscovered hisdemocraticcredentials wakein the ofmirror wentits own way Djukanovic,under theleadershipofMilo erstwhile an Milosevic which had only beeninthesamestate as Serbia during the Yugoslav decades— Riverof theIbar istheword“o”an with spelled still the end.Montenegro—at bereftidentity.communal ofa who returned to Croatiaafter theexodus are simplyminority group a largely destroyed the 400 year old Serbiancommunity intheKrajina—the martial Serbs Yugoslavia—and hadnow lostthemboth. Popovic noted Serbsthat only hadtwo ideas for their state—greater Serbia and gainingwithout aspaceinwhich wherever Serbs lived “here is Serbia.” Srdja SerbianSerbianationalists, its influenceoverlost non-Serbiancommunities contradiction of SerbianWithout thefederation nationalism. so maligned by all thenewstates. despite Western rhetoric to thecontrary—dominated developmentpolitical in prevented from achieving the19th century-styleprojects nationalizing that— Serbstheir own.the on nationalities, go outthecompeting among wereAlone republiccould notsecede from thenewstates, either to joingreater Serbiaor declared cohesivethat Serbiancommunities located outside Yugoslavia’s Serbian when they chose to secede fromfederation, thecollapsing then arbitrarilybut blessed Slovenia, Croatia,and thenon-Serb communitiesinBosnia-Herzegovina internationals’approach. German,American,andother internationalmavens drownedthe fact out the Serbsthat inarguingpoint had a against the defeatsignal a for theSerbs. Western insistence onmulti-culturalteleology Third, adhoc,often confused internationalrecognition ofpost-Yugoslav Second, the Western mantra thatthere are no militarysolutionsintheBalkans 117 116 115 114 Perhaps theworst defeatwasof all theopprobrium visitedSerbia upon by The Serbs suffered material loss of territory and resources. Defeat inthefield analysis,In thefinal the breakup ofYugoslavia underscored the self-defeating

See Bideleux and Jeffries, p.198. SeeBideleux and Srdja Popovic, «Serb Anomie,»Pescanik.net, January24,2009. UgoVlaisavljevic, «TheSlav South the Ultimate Identityand War Reality,»Savic,and inBjelic 191- pp. Judah,p.327. 115 117 Wrose, Serbiamuch ofKosova—onlylost north 116 114

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 35 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 36 aggressively”to rightwrongs past andtoin theBalkans. become“dominant” their goodness.” The time hadcome,according to Anzulovic, for Serbs to “act 1389-esque Serbsview that always haveof victims ofothers“because the been down a Serbian history professor named Branimir Anzulovic propagated the were engaged inatavistic violence. other Yugoslav shards have leftanimpression Serbs—notthat notably— justbut wearing peaked Chetnik caps, andexchanges of insults withnationalistsfrom Returningémigrés enough with money to make trouble,poseurs and nationalists and thugshavenationalists contributed to what continuesto beSerbia’s defeat. against usingtheterm “genocide”regarding what happenedatSrebrenica. haze. post-Yugoslavor attempt combatants to obscure whatlegalistica happened in by sayingthe behavior that of Serbs was noworse thebehaviorthan of the other resolution acknowledging thecrime, too manyeither stillshrug off those killings committed in Europe since World War II.Despite a belated parliamentary of Bosnian Serb forces in themassacre atSrebrinica—the worst atrocity the debate over “war crimes.” SomeSerbsrefuse still to acknowledge culpability independence in 2006 depended critically on Serbia’s loss of face inthewake of of Djukanovic toevenly among the balance tip divided Montenegrins toward Milosevic did not wipecleanthestainof international opprobrium; the ability the imageof“Serb”morphed from warrior to rapist. remindedthe record about their publics ofSerbianheroism, led only to defeat andself-degradation. Serbianfirepower inBosniaandBelgrade’s organs ofrepression in 1990s Kosovo often incoherent Western interventions. The thoughtlessuse of andbrutallocal bear responsibility for their actions, nomatter the record of self-righteous and violent Serbs who assassinated Franz Ferdinand in1914. whose image stood in sharp contrast to theheroicenjoyed patina by thealso- vilification madetheSerbs into anewversion of Balkan “vampire,” monsters “most European” of countries. was boththemeasure andtheenemy ofSerbia.Milosevic his homelandthe called of abridgehadbeendestroyed that inthe1999onenotedbombing Europe that and defeat inthe20thcenturyandreinvented itselfasculturally evolved. the scrutiny“Europe” ofa carvedthat distance fromethical out itsownviolence (groupedand other undertheneologism“ethniccleansing”),actscame of the villain1990s. Serbs’ share rapes,in thekillings, forced evacuations underdog of1914, tragic hero of1915-16, and sacrificialspaceof1941 became 26, 2009,andNenad Dimitrijevic, «The Past, Responsibility, andtheFuture,» August 1,2009. pescanik.net, pp. 39-59. 124 123 122 121 120 119 118 Intellectualpedantry has not helped matters. As thewars were winding isin thiscontextIt the appropriationthat symbols ofoldnational by While some Europeans—for example French President Francois Mitterrand— Serb spokemen seethedbeing thusvilified. at Inaspeechthereopeningat 122

Branimir Anzulovic, AgenceFrance Press, July 12,2010. For example,YUCOM, «Serbia Remembranceand Day oftheSrebrenica Genocide, Julypescanik.net LucindaCole,«Sexualizing DusanI.Bjelicand theSerb,» inBjelicandSavic, pp.279-310. Ahrens, p.508. Tomislav Z.Longinovic, «Vampires Like US:GothicImageryandtheSerbs,»and Savic, inBjelic eds., Vesna Goldsworthy, «Invention andIn(ter) vention,» inibid.,p.34. Bosnian SerbBosnian strongman Milorad Dodik hascontinuedto out speak Heavenly Serbia 118 Tomislav Longinovic suggested Westernthat (NewYork: NewYork University Press, 1999), p. 7. 121 The ouster and deathof 120 119 to otherobservers Serbs certainly 123 124

class lives” inBelgrade andleftonly thepoor to fight inBosniaandtheKrajina. His wife, Mira Markovic, complained in 1995some that refugees expected “first Serbsin theclichéthat love Kosovovery but few ofthemare to willing live there. resisted when Milosevic attempted to resettlethem inKosovo—evidence of truth refugees’ expectationstheythat would beprovided homes. new 1690. Rather, theeconomically hard-pressed Serbiangovernment disappointed no effort to cast Croatian andBosnianrefugees in themoldof the trekkers of defeated anddishonored, ratheras heroic than victims.Inparticular, there was in poor health. Refugees from Croatia andBosniaoften were treated in Serbia as partnership withthepeopletarred astheauthorsof“ethniccleansing.” forcoalition its invasion ofIraq was notenough to convince theUSto accept efforts inIraq andAfghanistan.Even thedesire tointernational assemblean post-Milosevicthe government offer of1000 troopsmilitary of US support in Serbs shouldnothave beensurprised when in2003 Washington turned down on March 12, 2003 sparked a mass outpouring of grief and angerwellout of their defeatsof the1990s. Theassassinationof Prime Minister ZoranDjindjic “reform.” of recurrentonslaughts diplomatic by Bosniaks andWesterners demanding benefit from inertiaby simply insistingonpreserving Dayton asisinthe face and summer—largely stood by. This success has permitted BosniaSerbs to whose warthe previous aimshadbeenaccomplishedonthebattlefield spring force thedealonareluctantIzetbegovicAlija asCroatianPresident Tudjman— forces theSerbeffect, In leader andUSofficials partnered hadbeenascendant. to become enshrined in diplomaticback-and-forth duringthetimewhen Serb previous year wouldthe 49percentcost them not territorial sharehad that bydiplomacy Milosevic inDayton assuredSerb that defeatsbattlefield of the as aSerbian entitywithminimaltiestoBosnian state. thenotional Successful Dayton agreementplace andlegitimized partitionedthattheRepubika Srpska rhetoric multiculturalabout democracy inBosnia-Herzegovina, the1995 follows: tothem back and bussing places thefront. Press gangs trawledBelgrade’s restaurants,Serbscooping up frommen those Atrelationssame time, the Serbsamong suggested wastheir community that 128 127 126 125 One event forcedintrospection painful amongSerbs asto themeaningof 11. There was oneSerbianvictory to comeoutofthe1990s. Despite Western

Ibid.,p.337. Ibid.,p.296. Judah.,p.287. BideleuxandJeffries, p.306. are asprudentotherpeople.They run.” Lazar’s and humiliation.These people were Arsenije’s children. The Serbs, caught upin Assassination asDefeat “For myth, the Serbs believe who they lost always their stand homes and there 128 fight. 127 was Judah summed up the situation as the situation Judahsummedup When no Empire defeat of looms, heaven, though, 126 just BosnianSerbs flight they 125

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 37 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 38 had won andtheSerbs had lost. Sovietliberation. occupation,not this interpretationIn Tito the Communists and Serbsbecause considered day that victory,a not defeat, a representationa of victory over Fascism in World War II.According to Dubravka Stojanovic, thiswas to standaloofwhile the rest of Europe celebrated the 60th anniversary of the defeat nationalismandSerbia’s past. 1868. Serbian press in the fallof 2009) and the murder of Prince Michael Obrenovic in (the 75th anniversary of eventthat would receive considerableattention inthe Djindjic’s murder to the1934Alexanderassassination ofKing Karadjordjevic anniversary of the assassinationapproached, Olga Popovic-Obradovic compared believed outsidersheldthisviewstruckme as worth noting). Serbsthat were backward andnotready to jointheWestthese people (that some withofhissupporters ifoutsiders asking weredisgust, right inbelieving 15, the day of Djindjic’s funeral. sense ofvictimization. Djindjic was murdered, itseemedSerbiaclear that was to notabout disgorge its for a statewould that encompassSerbsall wherever they lived. By thetime manyand concludedthat Serbs remained trapped by thedefeat of their dream Serbview that wasnationalism of law,the rule and stability with incompatible in thiseffortin hisrivalry and Kostunica.with ambitious legislative changesdesignedto establishtheruleoflaw. to providelegal a forbaseline new Serbia a while Djindjicworked toless enact take Serbia into theEUandWest. Kostunica pressed for a newconstitution philosophical iconoftheenlightenmentleading “Europe”—andand wanted to less sterlingreputations). Djindjic hadbeenastudentofJuergen Habermas—a widely considered anhonest politician (although some of his associates had scholar who wasskeptical nationalistic, of theWest, friendly toward Russia, and Vojislavwith Kostunicato direct Serbia’s immediate future. Kostunicawas legal a the figureheads of the 2000 rising against Milosevic, had been inatug-of-war proportion toof thedeceasedDjindjic,one popularity politician. theactual Cover UpaCrime,»Pescanik.net, May 24, 2010. November 15, 2009 and noted here withthe author’spermission. See also Stojanovic, «Rewriting History to presented toconvention theannual of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, of the Berlin Wall.The the newly authorcomplained that reunified Germany in reactioncomplaint to commemorations ofthe20thanniversary of thefall 132 131 130 129 In thesamevein, inthefallof 2009 aBosnianSerb website reprinted asullen Serbs continue to expressMay On sense a ofdefeat. 8,2005 Serbiachose 12. The feeling of daythat remains powerful, atleastto some. As thesixth estimatedAn 500,000poured people onto thestreets ofBelgradeMarch on Vesna Pesic, one of the leadingfigures of 2000 has arguedDjindjic thatfailed 131

Dubravka Stojanovic, «Revisions of the Second World War History in Contemporary Serbia,» paper Olga Popovic-Obradovic, «The UnityofEvil,» Pescanik.net, February 23,2009. BideleuxandJeffries, p.301. Vesna Pesic, «The State,» NationalismofanImpossible Pescanik.net, July 18,2008. Popovic-Obradovic agreed with Vesna Pesic that Djindjic had failed to Conclusion: CanSerbiaEmerge From Defeat? 130 132 Whatstruckmewas thegeneral sense of self- 129 She secondedRamet’s Sabrina no mentionofKosova’s status. pressure theresolution’sacknowledged finallanguage theICJ ruling andmade of Kosova’s independence. This only made things worse for Belgrade; under EU UN GeneralAssembly September that would that have re-stated Serbia’s denial Belgrade attempted to recover from thisdefeatby proposingresolution a for the SerbianPresident Boris Tadic“fellruling saidthat heavily” on hiscountry. declarationof independence violated internationallaw directa with “no.” InternationalCourt ofJusticeanswered Serbia’s questionofwhether Kosova’s separation ofmuchKosovo from Serbia. intellectualsand public railed againstNATO “aggression” and thesubsequent of the US-ledbombingcampaignagainst Kosovo, andsome Serbian politicians the collapse of effect, former Yugoslavia. pressed for therecognition ofSlovene andCroatianindependence and,in Jeremic, Athens, in MoodofSelfPity,» March balkaninsight.net 25,2009. Tanjug,March 23,2009, Agence France Press, March 23,2009, and «Serbs RecallNATO Raids With SomeAnger 2009, and «Serbiascarred still by NATO Strikes a Decade On,» «Serbia’s Tadic Addresses UNSC on Kosovo,» 2009. “Balkanof a Tower” made ofSerbianpeakeda sandals with peasants’ (Chetnik) Identity,”developera writer and namedIgor Ivanovicfor called theconstruction ourselves asthey do. of their history and shouldnotallowforeigners’ perceptions toto get“us” see independence. place’s that accept the suffering ofSerbsin Kosova of hisgovernment’spart as refusal adamant to Foreign Minister of the current,pro-Western Serbian government railed against existence of Yugoslavia—even thefirst Yugoslavia—as adefeat for Serbs. The admitted to noSerbian wrongdoing inthe1990s. responsible for thecatastrophe of1914, Kostunicaattacked Western policiesand tonewould that have fit wellin thepost-World War exchange I over who was rejected the Yugoslav years as distracting from theSerbproject. Ina national amidst great losses” of the 1915-16 retreat and—like theintellectualsof 1986— defeats.”and political statethe Serb and wasnation extinguishednot times ofthegreatest at military spiritual defeats…” He then shifted to a more defiant voice: “The light of the Serb with thepossibilitythatourandmilitarydefeatspolitical couldbecome also our once worried “…wethat are perhaps confronted, for the first time inourhistory, ready tothe events blame led to that defeat oneveryoneitself. Kostunica but the endof1918, itself atdefeated,defeatof that denial and in or bitter it, about foreign policy. Inasense, Serbia is in something like theplaceGermany found century—remainsthe last animportanttheme in Serbian introspection and wounds,a focus but ondefeats—of thedistantpastandof the second half of There certainly are many Serbs whocollective donotspendtheirtimelicking The defeatin Kosovo was punctuated further in July 2010 when the 139 138 137 136 135 134 133 Kostunica is not alone.Vojin Dimitrijevic recently painted the 20th century

See Pyotr Iskenderov, «Balkan Shadow of Berlin Celebration,» posted on nspm.rs, November 15, Mirjana Miocinovic, Mirjana «History asPrivate Property,» Pescanik.net, April4,2009. This diatribe cameunder the innocuous title «APeaceful andEuropean Future for Kosovo» (Vuk Vojislav Kostunica, «The Serb Crossroads,» Nationatthe Pescanik.net, April2,2009. FinancialTimes,September 10,2010,and Tanjug, July 22,2010. IvicaDacic,«UnilateralKosovo Secession Recognition Continued Aggression,» Tanjug,March 23, To Vima , electronic edition,March 17,2009) 139 137 In a book with the typicallywith book a In neutral“Culturetitle and He pointed to ancientsacrifices and the“moralcredit 136 138 Mirjana Miocinovic Mirjana saidSerbs are proud www.b-92.net 133 134 2009 also was the10th anniversary , September 10,2010. 135

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 39 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 40 scholar DubravkaStojanovic concludedfromthe defeat thisthat “fara left deeper 10 percent gaveto thatlabel the uprising and liberation from Ottoman rule.The described of Kosovothe battle Polje asthemostimportantevent inhistory; only surprise a recentthat of pollSerbs recorded 22 that percent of respondents among Balkan“alone” culture. peopleshasan“authentic” cap ontop to commemorate Serb sacrifices and underscoreSerbia thepointthat 140

Ivan Colovic, «Balkan Tower,» Pescanik.net, August 2,2008. 140 It should beno It of Democracyexisted that incentraland Eastern Europe inthe1920s and1930s. space. The EUisfar morenow appealing wasthan indecisive thecorrupt, version forleast that—at now—is thestrongest desire throughout theformer Yugoslav Yugoslavia isstrong enough to undermine the hopeofjoiningEuropean Union events ofthe1990sfor northenostalgia Titomany among non-Serbsin former Kosovar Albanian. defeat amongdefendants’ home communities, whether Serb, Croat, Bosniak,or of thepost-Yugoslav internationallegal carnival has beento createsense a of who want to slough off the pastandjoin“Europe.” Indeed, the mainconsequence dock during war crimes trials inThe Hague is a sore point witheven many Serbs internationalthe quantitative condemnation.Still, preponderance of Serbs inthe been no Treaty of Versailles to assign andSerbiaguilt bears no official mark of mark” thantheliberation. prosperous andlessviolentfuture. Europe thatis moreself-righteous, thanalittle alsooffersbut the hope of a more part ofKosovo nolonger underitscontrol identityina andsubsumeitsnational kingdom. Thiswouldrequire thehard decision toloss ofthat acquiesceinthe victimization, or decides instead infavor of an earthly rather thanheavenly to follow itstraditional pathof cultivating aself-perception of serial defeat and and regional history. The issue going forwardbe whether will Serbiachoose will for others theseevents provided a welcome closetoawful an chapter inSerbian arrests ofRadovanKaradzic andRatkoas furtherdefeats, Mladiccommunal but and need notbedecisive asSerbs lookto their future. Some Serbs treated the 1990s remains adaily “defeat”for Serbs,arethose calls but weakening gradually rightshuman activists for Serbian acknowledgement ofthewar crimes of the 9 hadnowhere neartheimpactinregion ofthedepression ofthe1930s. or the other Yugoslav successor states. Finally, theglobalfinancial crisis of 2008- interwar years tothe legitimacyofcurrent challenge governments inSerbia addition, noattractiveIn CommunistorFascist alternative exists asduringthe There are countertrends to this sullenness.Neither communal anger at the withpost-WorldThe analogy WarGermany I stops short of 1919. There has 141 Demands from the Dutch government, Bosniakgroups, andinternational

Dubravka Stojanovic, «The NicerTruth,» Pescanik.net, November 28,2010. 141

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 41 | (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ 42 From the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century Gerolymatos, Andre. Greece. The Fleming, K.E. 1, 2009. Dimitrijevic, Nenad. Dedijer, Vladimir. Colovic, Ivan. Churchill, Winston. and Fragmentation Savic,and Dusan, Bjelic, Obrad,eds. Novembernet, 11,2008. Biserko, Sonja. York: Routledge, 2007. Biledeux, Robert, andJeffries, Ian. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2008. ______Ithaca, NY: CornelUniversity Press, 1994. Barkey, Karen. Sarajevo, 1941-2. EmilyBalic, Greble. 1999. Anzulovic, Branimir. Anderson, Benedict. 2000. John Allcock, B. Woodrow WilsonCenter Press, 2007. the Minorities WorkingGroup ofthe Conference onYugoslavia Ahrens, Geert-Hinrich. Judah, Tim. 2009. Iskenderov, Pyotr. New York: Viking,2000. Glenny, Misha. Bibliography Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. The Serbs. Balkan Tower. Bandits andBureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization The Balkans: Nationalism, War, andthe Great Powers, 1804-1999 Dobrica Cosic andthe LastDefenseSerb of Nationalism EmpireDifference: of TheOttomansComparative in Perspective Slavic Review, vol. 63, #1,Spring2009. Explaining Yugoslavia.Explaining The Road to Sarajevo Balkan Shadow onBerlin Celebration Muslim Bonaparte: andOrientalism Diplomacy in Ali Pasha’s . Cambridge,MA:MITPress, 2002. The World Crisis. The Past, Responsibility,The Past, andthe Future. Imagined Communities When CroatiaWhen NeededSerbs: Nationalism and Genocidein NewHaven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. Heavenly Serbia. The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, andRetribution Diplomacy OntheDiplomacy Edge: Containment ofEthnicConflict and Pescanik.net. August 2,2008. TheBalkans: A Post-Communist History. NewYork, Scribner’s, 1923. BalkanGlobalization as Metaphor: Between . NewYork: Simon andSchuster, 1966. NewYork: NewYorkUniversity Press, NewYork: ColumbiaUniversity Press, . London:Verso, 1983. . NewYork: BasicBooks, 2002. . Nspm.ru,November 15, Pescanik.net, August . Washington, D.C.: . Pescanik. New . . . Mitrany, David. Miocinovic, Mirjana. MA Harvard University Press, 2006. Lear, Jonathan. Kostunica,Vojislav. Muslims, 1917-1923. Katsikas, Stefanos. 1993. RobertKaplan, D. 2003. DavidKanin, B. Nationalities Papers, vol. 37,#1,September 2009. Zdravkovic-Zonta, Helena. Julynet. 26,2009. YUCOM. University ofCalifornia Press, 1997. Wolfram,Herwig. West, Rebecca. University Press, 2009. Wilson, Peter H. Todorova, Maria. ______24, 2010. Stojanovic, Dubravka. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. University ofPittsburg Press, 2008. Rusinow,Dennison. 2005. Sabrina. Ramet, Popovic-Obradovic, Olga . Popovic, Srdja. Pesic, Vesna. TheNationalismofanImpossibleState. Pescanik.net July 18,2008. Development. Palairet, Michael. Fertig, 1936. Bloomington, IN:IndianaUniversity Press, 2006. Serbia andthe Remembrance Dayofthe Srebrenica Genocide Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1997. Radical Hope:Ethicsin the Face Cultural of Devastation Serb Anomie. Black LambandGrey Falcon The Effecttheof War Southeastern in Europe The Thirty YearsThe Thirty War: Europe’s Tragedy Big Men, Crime,Men, Big Corruption.and The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building andLegitimation,1918- Imagining theImagining Balkans BalkanThroughJourney Ghosts:A History. The SerbThe the Nationat Crossroads The Balkan Economies,Evolution c.1800-1914: Without The RomanThe EmpirePeoples.Germanic Its and Millets in Nation-States: The Case of Greek andBulgarian NationalitiesPapers, vol. 37,#2,March 2009. History asPrivateHistory Property Yugoslavia:and Observations Oblique Insights The Nicer Truth Rewriting to CoverHistory UpaCrime The Culture ofDefeat. The Unity ofEvil The Unity Pescanik.net, January24,2009. NarrativesVictims andVillains of in Kosovo . Pescanik.net, November 10,2010. . NewYork. Oxford University Press, 1997. . Pescanik.net, February 23,2009. . NewYork: Penguin, 1982. NewYork: Picador, 2001. . Pescanik.net, April4,2008. International Politics, vol.40, . Pescanik.net,. April2,2009. . Cambridge,Harvard MA. NewYork: Scribner’s, . NewYork:Howard . Pescanik.net, May . Pittsburgh:. . Cambridge, Berkeley: . Pescanik. .

PECOB’s Papers Series | July 2011 | #13 | The Serbs: Nurtured By Defeat | by David B. Kanin 43 David B. Kanin

David B. Kanin is Adjunct Professor of European Studies at Johns Hopkins University and an Ana-lytic Director at CENTRA Technologies. He recently retired as a Senior Analyst with the US Central Intel-ligence Agency. His recent publications include “Not Your father’s Sporazum,” “The Intimate Dance of Enemies,” and Yugoslavia in 1989 and After: A Comment on Gagnon.” He is writing “Partition, Frustra-tion, and Identity in the Former Yugoslavia”, which will be a chapter in a forthcoming book on UN peacekeeping efforts in partition situations. [email protected] Creative Commons License About PECOB Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe University of Bologna - 1, San Giovanni Bosco - Faenza - Italy PECOB disseminatesddiss up-to-date materials, provides contentscontents ooff hihighgh sscienticientic valuevalue andand raises the visibility of research works with theh aim of f ffacilitating l national/internationall/ collaboration on the institutional level and promoting scientic research in the disciplinary elds concerning East- Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Post-Soviet space.

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