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4. A Moral World Imperiled Feeling threatened by the encroaching forces of modernity, the corrosion of the traditional social structure, the alterations in morals and customs, the intrusion of foreign capital, the growing influence of foreign powers, and the modernization schemes of those who aimed to transform Serbia into a modern state according to Western European standards, the Serbian Radicals were well aware of being at the crossroads of modernity. Conscious of the poverty and backwardness of their country, and under pressure to find a timely answer to the thorny issue of development, the Radicals were persuaded that time was running against them, exposing them to inevitable and uncontrollable events, as “the waves of the European market strike against the borders of Serbia.”39 Nikola Pašić phrased his concern in terms that resemble very much contemporary visions of globalization: Roads, which were previously journeyed in a month’s time and with great uncertainty, are traveled today in less than a day, while some that used to take years do not require more than a couple of weeks. Moreover, the whole European world is living one and the same life. From Paris to Istanbul, telegraphic wires carry the same news to everybody and vice versa. From East to West, the whole empire knows what the Tsar announces in Petrograd the very same day. Correspondingly, the Tsar is informed on the same day about the most significant events in his kingdom. The world is, so to say, compressed into one house. Due to the disappearance of obstacles to expansion, industrial and socio-economic life is organized according to the following fashion, whereby some [people/nations] disappear, disintegrate or are forced to unite their forces with the already existing strong alliances . The economic-industrial struggle has become more intensive and extensive. At every step there is competition and at every step you witness how the strongest subjugates the weakest.40 The Serbian radical intelligentsia expressed essentially the concerns of a patriarchal society in collision with the anonymous forces of modernity . Their desiderata were contained in a non-negligible but wishful package: an acceptable form of modernization, controlling and simul- 77 4. A Moral World Imperiled taneously accelerating its pace, but also suitable answers to the issue of social equality, political freedom and the national question. Following in the footsteps of the Russian Populists, and reckoning Serbia’s “backwardness ” to be an advantage, the Radicals sought to preserve its egalitarian structure and its basic moral physiognomy while avoiding repeating the Western path of social evolution. Alexander Gerschekron has maintained that the “situation in a backward country may be conceived of as a state of tension between its actualities and potentialities,”41 and it was undeniably this hiatus that spurred both the radical critique and the radical vision. The potential of the Radicals’ understanding lay not solely in the prospect of catching up with contemporary civilization and progress, but also in making use of the historical experience of European civilization and the perspectives it offered as a compass for an indigenous, original and equitable social development. The search for a developmental model attuned to the spirit of the Serbian traditions, both economic and political, remained a persistent theme of radical doctrine. If the social question, as posed by socialist critics in the West, pertained to the issue of a more equitable distribution of wealth, in the case of Serbia the creation of wealth was the indisputable priority: “Our state is one of the youngest in Europe; we are just now starting to build a house, while other nations/people are already proprietors. In order for us to become big masters too, we need time, but it is our duty to ensure that this time arrives as soon as possible.”42 Salvation was sought in a formula that would allow for growth, while impeding class division in a society just starting to experience social differentiation. In this respect, the first Serbian Socialists were both products of their times and of their own specific social milieu: “They were a reflex of a modern phenomenon, the idea of socialism, but also the mouthpieces of their patriarchal society.”43 Their populist doctrine fed on, and simultaneously codified, the values of the peasant world into political ideology.44 Theoretically leaning on Chernyshevsky, the shortcut to modernity and to socialism—representing the most perfected form of modern social existence—was to be found in the retention and perfection of traditional patriarchal institutions, the obština (community) and the zadruga (extended...

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