Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide

Contents

ix Contents Acknowledgments xi A Note on Pronunciation, Transliteration, and Translation xiii Introduction 1 1 Heavenly Serbia 11 The Birth of the Myth 11 Unheavenly Heroes 13 The Byzantine Heritage 17 Saint-Savaism: Radical Nationalization of a Church 23 2 The Encounter with the Turks 33 Ottoman Religious Tolerance 33 The Short-Lived Serbian Empire 36 Resistance and Collaboration 38 3 Dinaric Highlanders and Their Songs 45 The Violent Balkan Highlands 45 The Prince-Bishop’s ‘‘Song of Horror’’ 51 The Chorus 61 4 The Dilemmas of Modern Serbian National Identity 69 The Legacy of the Enlightenment and Romanticism 69 x | Contents Language and Territory 74 The Resurrection and International Recognition of a Pagan War God 80 The Bloody Rebirth of the Serbian State 85 The High Cost of Imperial Ambitions 89 5 A Vicious Circle of Lies and Fears 99 Fictional Data and Real Hatreds 99 The Fear of Vanishing 109 The Academy Memorandum 114 The Church Identifies the Devils 118 Fear Transformed into a Spider: Poisonous Bestsellers 128 The Highlanders as Scapegoats 141 6 The Outsiders’ Myth-Calculations 147 The Acceptance of Heavenly Serbia 147 Balkanization or Scandinavianization 149 The Imaginary Bulwark 151 Indifference Makes a Difference 162 Fig-Leaf Myths 170 Conclusion 175 Notes 183 Selected Bibliography 217 Index 227 ...