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Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide book review
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Branimir Anzulovic’s Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide (1999) discusses the beginnings of the idea/myth of a “Heavenly Serbia” and the establishment of the Kosovo Myth to modern times. The Kosovo Myth (and others) has had a direct impact on Serbian culture up to the present day. The foundation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1219 by Saint Sava also plays an important role in Serb nationalism and the destructiveness of the recent Balkan Wars of the 1990s. In this review, I will focus on the establishment of the idea of a “Heavenly Serbia” and the importance of a battle that took place on 28 June 1389. By doing so, modern Serb nationalism may better be understood, and how these myths were used in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. The role of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Serbian fear of vanishing, along with the role of the intelligentsia of the 1980s will be explored as well.
On 28 June 1389 – Vid’s Day – The Battle of Kosovo took place on Kosovo Field between the Ottoman-Turks and the Serbs (along with a substantial number of Bosnians, Bulgars, Croats, Wallachians, and Albanians). The leaders in both camps – Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic and Ottoman Sultan Murad I – were killed in action. The Kosovo Myth is the story how Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic chose the heavenly kingdom over the earthly one. On the eve of the battle, Saint Elias appears to the prince and gives him a choice: a military victory and expanded earthly empire, or defeat (and death) with the promise of securing a place in Heaven for himself and his people. Prince Lazar chose the heavenly kingdom; he thus becomes the second most important saint in Serbian Orthodoxy, the first being Saint Sava.
The original – and perfectly normal – function of “...the legend of Prince Lazar’s choice of the heavenly kingdom was to transform an alleged military defeat into a moral victory” (Anzulovic 1999, 12). This helped the Serbs deal with five centuries of domination by a foreign civilization. However, the legend was gradually expanded to portray the Serbs as a people who “…at every decisive turn in their history opt for the heavenly kingdom by taking the moral high ground” (Anzulovic 1999, 12). The domination by the Ottoman Empire contributed to the development of the Serbs’ “…self-image of a holy people whose moral superiority makes them victims of the immorality of others” (Anzulovic 1999, 33).
The core of the Kosovo myth is the linking of war with Serbia’s salvation, and Prince Lazar as its martyr. Linking Prince Lazar with Jesus Christ can be seen in the folk song KneΕΎeva vecera (‘The Prince’s Supper’), “…which tells about Prince Lazar’s supper with his knights on the eve of the battle. …‘What is the Kosovo Supper but a repetition of the Last Supper? The Sacrificial Victim presides over both. At the Last Supper it is Christ, God, who sacrifices himself; at the Kosovo Supper, a ruler and a people sacrifice themselves’” (Anzulovic 1999, 12). This analogy can be seen in paintings in Serbian Orthodox Churches as well.
Since the foundation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1219 by Saint Sava, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian state have had close relations. Unlike the Catholic Church, the churches of the East have a history of subservience to the state; in fact, one of the salient features of the Orthodox Church is its “…subservience to state and nation, [and] provides moral support to internal oppression and external aggressiveness” (Anzulovic 1999, 112).
Saint Sava makes this point clear: he was “…the youngest son of the founder of the Nemanja dynasty, and brother of the first Serbian king” (Anzulovic 1999, 23). Turkish rule in Serbia did not end the politicization of the Serbian Orthodox Church; rather, it simply changed its nature. Since the Serbian state ceased to exist, it served the Ottoman state under the millet system. The Serbian Orthodox Church was a “…cultural and quasi-political institution, which embodied and expressed the ethos of the Serbian people to such a degree that nationality and religion fused into a distinctive ‘Serbian faith’” (Anzulovic 1999, 25). It became the main carrier of Serbian national identity.
This elite of the Serbian intelligentsia was the first to start talking…of the genocidal character of the Croatian people. …It was their duty to explain to their compatriots who have never had direct contact with the Croatian people how much the latter are…murderous and incurably dangerous. …After half a century bones began to be pulled out of the earth. The academicians, these chosen people dedicated to a cause, patriots, ‘fathers of the nation,’ have marched like necrophiles toward mass graves, while the people whose trauma and distress began to be manipulated stood by as public and victim (Anzulovic 1999, 140).
*Please view my article on national self-identity in South Slavic literature. I use Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel (1988) for Serbs, Meša Selimovic's Death and the Dervish (1966) for Bosniaks, and Antun Šoljan’s A Brief Excursion and Other Stories (2000) for Croats: http://www.examiner.com/x-27426-Volusia-County-Foreign-Policy-Examiner~y2009m10d22-National-selfidentity-in-South-Slavic-literature-Bosniak-Croatian-and-Serbian.*
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