The Nature and Historical Background of Genocide During Serbia’s and
Montenegro’s Balkan Wars of 1912-1913
By Dean Stinson
Vladika Petar II Petrović Njegoš – Monarch of Montenegro and author of The Mountain Wreath (1847) which incited Serbs and Montenegrins to exterminate Muslims
MA Holocaust and Genocide Studies
A Master’s Thesis produced for the University of Amsterdam in conjunction with the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies
Supervisor: Karel C. Berkhof Second Reader: Uğur Ü. Üngör
Contents
Introduction
3
Chapter I: The Construction of Ideology
Ancient Legends
7
Building an Empire
9
Losing an Empire
9
Ottoman Rule
11
Janissaries and Wars
17
Bandits, Despots, and National Liberation
19
Poetry, Literature, and Political Movements
23
Chapter I: Conclusion
26
Chapter II: From Ideology to Genocide: Crisis, Transmission, and the Agents of Terror
The Eastern Crisis
30
The Macedonian Crisis
31
The Bosnian Crisis and the Young Turks
32
The Bulgarian Exarchic Threat
33
The Albanian National Threat
34
Treat of War
35
Mobilisation
37
Transmission of Ideology
39
The Agents of Terror
47
Chapter II: Conclusion
52
Chapter III: From War to Genocide
Conduct of the War
54
Expropriation and Eviction
56
Murder and Massacre
59
Conversion
65s
Monastir: A Case Study
68
Chapter III: Conclusion
71
Conclusion
73
Introduction
The Balkan Wars of 1912 – 1913 have been relegated to the realms of largely forgotten wars. For military historians, the Balkan Wars have become a case study for the developing totalisation of warfare for military historians. For historians of the First World War, the Balkan Wars were another step in the increasing tensions in Europe. The Balkan Wars are exemplified for contributing to the ‘short war illusion’ and the increasing technological capacity with which modern states waged war in the twentieth century. Yet another aspect of the war that is not well recognised or documented is the genocide, or at least ethnic cleansing, which occurred during the war which set a dangerous precedent. During and after the Second World War, and after the collapse of Communism and the Yugoslav Federation, genocidal actions including ethnic cleansing would feature again. I will argue in this thesis that not the Armenian Genocide, but the Balkan Wars, was in fact the first European genocide. They were the first recorded incidents in the twentieth century of Orthodox on Orthodox violence between communities rather than armies. That is why a Carnegie Endowment Commission of Inquiry described the Balkan Wars as ‘a war of race, religion, and reprisal’.1
Serbia and Montenegro are studied here alongside each other because of their common religion, similar language, history, and even foreign policy objectives. The states of Serbia and Montenegro are related as the ‘two Serbian Kingdoms’ left over from the series of medieval Serbian states. The two countries had a desire to be relinked. Many Montenegrins went to study in Serbia and many Serb clergymen received their theological education in Montenegro. Both countries are of the Serbian Orthodox faith and see each as not identical, but related. The Balkan Wars, and the aims of Montenegro and Serbia, would eventually result in the two countries being reunited in the Sandjak of Novi-Pazar, which had been occupied by either the Austrian or
Ottoman Empire to prevent the union, and integrated in to the country known as Yugoslavia after the First World War. In this research, the similar aims, and identities, and conduct of Montenegrin and Serbs warrant their actions to be analysed simultaneously, for they shared the same cultural values, identity, and objectives in the war and behaved similarly. However, Serbia is commonly considered the more dominant partner in the relationship, so the focus will be primarily on Serbia.
The literature on the aspect of genocide in the Balkan Wars is light. There is no dedicated study to this historical event and it is rarely even given the attention of a preface. One reason is surely that the events of the First World War diverted international attention away from the aftermath
of the Balkan Wars. Another perhaps is that the Armenian Genocide has received far more attention with victim groups campaigning for justice. The lack of primary information is another possible reason for the lack of coverage. Literacy was poor in the Balkans in the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in the first decades, so few written testimonies are left and those we have, are often focus on the traumatic experience of Serbia’s First World War. There was also little international appetite for documenting human rights abuses before the 1948 Genocide convention so that there was no market for scholars to write on this subject for at least thirty years after. Scholars such as Paul Mojzes and Richard Hall have approached the subject but they rely heavily on the Carnegie Commission for International Peace report that documents the horrors and ‘exterminations’ witnessed.2
The Carnegie Commission report is by no means perfect. It is the standard body of literature on the topic but it has limitations. For example, whilst Serbia did not prevent information reaching the Commission, they did not provide any information of their own which makes reconstruction of events from the Serbian point of view rather more difficult. Official documentation was never released to the commission and it was restricted to what it could gather on its visits to the warzone after the conflict or was handed to them by others. There is a body of literature on the subject and there is valid cause for its revival under the disciplinary lens of genocide studies to examine if, like in the case of Armenia in 1915, the term, and accusation, may be applied retroactively to the Balkans over a century later. The war correspondents like Leon Trotsky, or the Military observers such as Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin, or even the ordinary travelling character of Edith Durham all documented what they saw in the Balkans during the war and it is hard to escape the conclusion that actions that could be conceived as genocidal were not
uncommon. There is also a body of documentation emanating from the British diplomatic service in the region that provide detailed and professional accounts of the situation as well as face to face reports from local inhabitants seeking refuge or asylum.
This research will focus primarily, all not exclusively, on primary sources with the intention of capturing some events during the Balkans wars undiluted by time. One objective of this research is to take the primary literature available and reconstruct some of the ideas and activities in the Balkan Wars to determine if what happened should really be called genocide. Within this study, the legal definition of genocide will be used. It will be shown that Serbia and Montenegro engaged in acts with the intent and some success to destroy in whole or in part, racial, national, 2 Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 - Prelude to the First World War, Routledge (2000). P. 136 & Paul Mojzes, Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century, Rowman & Litterfield Publishers Inc (2011). P. 25-43
ethnic, and religious groups within their newly conquered territory from the Balkan Wars. These groups comprised of Bulgarians, Slavic Muslims, Albanians, and Turkic Muslims.
Chapter one discusses the contribution of the history of Serbia and its interpretation into genocidal attitudes and themes. The motifs of religiously consecrated or culturally valorised racial and ethnic violence will be examined a long with their connection to national trauma and the national liberation struggles. Identity construction will be explored to show how history and mythology, often blurred, created elastic roles of internal and external enemy, Slavic betrayer and Islamic infidel, and also helped define a utopian vision of Serbia without these enemies. This utopia was built from a historical fantasy of a homogenous Serbian Empire without the
subjugation and slavery to Islamic or foreign rule. Chapter two will examine circumstances and events surrounding the Balkan Wars. The advent of crisis allowed for propagation of a life and death struggle for Serbia and Serbs and pitted rival emerging nation-states against each other in a battle to redraw the ethnographical map of the Balkans and how the elastic roles were applied to the contemporary context. The transmission of the ideology, its purpose, and the application shall be investigated to determine who applied the necessary pressure to legitimise violence and convince populations to do such acts, and how. The perpetrators shall also be examined to reveal a state coordinated, funded, and approved organisation with extreme obedience and
unrestrained violent tendencies was the mastermind behind the violence. Other perpetrators will be examined to show that it was not an event dominated by one group of society, but all
members of society were complicit in different roles with the intent of destroying their
neighbours. The impact of the transmission of the ideology of historical trauma and crisis will also be considered. Finally, in chapter three, the different techniques that were used to accomplish the genocide, including murder, massacre, expropriation, forcible eviction, forced religious
conversion, terror, and identity politics were used to engineer the utopian homogenous Serbia free from foreign rule that was propagated by the ideology crafted from history and crisis. A case study will also examine a specific area to illuminate the activity on micro-analytical scale. The main thesis running through this work will be that a history, theology, and culture full of jealousy, revenge, hatred, and religiously consecrated and culturally venerated violence was politicised in moments of crisis to inspire communities to destroy each other for the defence of race, nation, for revenge, or justice, and for a utopia; all with the final objective of eliminating in part, a religious, ethnic, racial, and cultural enemy so that security, purity, and utopia could be achieved. During the First Balkan War October 1912 – May 1913 Serbia formed a confessional alliance with Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro to attack Turkey. Bulgaria then attacked its neighbour in ally Serbia in June 1913 in a vain attempt to secure more land. So the old Serbian proverb says ‘It
is better to have and end with horror, than horror without end’.
Ancient Legends
Branimir Anzulovic points to three ‘pivotal’ figures in Serbian history. Chronologically, the first on his list is St. Sava.3 Born Rastko Nemanjić, youngest son of the founder of the first Serbian Royal family Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja, in 1172, Rastko took his monastic vows and joined the Orthodox Church. Rastko was also the Brother of the first Serbian king, Stefan I and after Rastko received the royal insignia and crown from the Byzantine Pope Honorius III in 1217, the Pope gave his blessing for an autocephalous church for the new Serbian kingdom in 1219 enabling Serbia to set up its first independent church.4 The reasons for granting this autocephalous church were complex but the rise of western Papist Christianity and the weakness of the Byzantine Empire resulted in this profitable concession for Serbia. Sava became the first leading figure in Serbia’s independent church and with the blessing of his brother, the King; the Nemanja’s reached a divine status among Serbs. Indeed, as well as Sava, many of his relatives were also canonised as Saints with his father, mother, and a brother reaching the legendary status.5 They were to become irreproachable figures in Serbian history and symbols of the intertwined concepts of faith, freedom, and Serbia. Practically speaking, St. Sava’s legacy has been considerable and destructive.
The construction of the Serbian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (SOC) strongly resembles the Byzantine Orthodox Church with a rigid patriarchal structure ensuring that the power in the church rested with its leader.6 The ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople still maintained a ‘special relationship’ with the new Serbian and Bulgarian autocephalous churches, but within their respective nations the new churches recognised no higher authority. The appointment of Sava as the leading Archbishop in the SOC was no coincidence. Sava was able to build a dogmatically strong church wedded to the state, his brother the King. For centuries, until
Communism, this special church-state relationship was maintained in Serbia. It put the SOC at the hands of the Monarchy for political purposes and was a direct link from Serbia’s Byzantine heritage. In this way, the Serbian Royal families were decreed with an unparalleled level of holiness and regarded has heroes for bringing a religious centre to Serbia where Serbs could practice the one true faith in their own way. The autocephalous church was also recognition of the Nemanja’s sovereignty. With a king, and now an independent church, there was no possibility of external influence in church affairs or the interference with the politicisation of the church and
3 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide, New York University Press (1999). P. 74 4 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 23
5 Mark Biondich, The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878, Oxford University Press (2011). P. 22
the two branches became co-dependent. The church supported the idea of the divine kings of a ‘holy Serbia’ and the state supported the existence of the church as an arm in its political arsenal and obtaining further independence from a weakening Byzantine Empire.7 The autocephalous church also helped Serbs create a definitive and exclusive identity. The SOC was the church endorsed by the state and it was perceived, and was, the Serb population’s church of choice and therefore Serbdom became affiliated with ‘the one true faith’. The SOC became the sole educator, litigator, and preacher of the Serbian state and if one was to be a Serb, surely one must follow the true ‘Serbian’ religion? This attitude has been labelled Christoslavism and makes Serb an exclusive religious identity as well as a national one.8 The Serb nation was to be Christian and if one was not a Christian, one was not truly a Serb.
So Saint Sava, through his leadership of the first independent Serbian church, intertwined the concepts of faith, race, and state into an inseparable entity described in Serbian as (Svetosavlje), known in English as Saint Savaism.9 This Saint Savaism proscribes a national church that is bereft of outside interference and subservient to the needs of the state. Savaism also crafted an exclusive identity for Serbs to rally around by uniting church, state, and people under the banner of the SOC. He is also identified with the foundation of the first Serbian state, in cooperation with his brother, and the Saintly status of him and his family have made this irreproachable and provided the ground work for what some call ‘Holy Serbia’.10 Sava had another side other than his passionate Christian beliefs and state building prowess. As Serbian Historian, Veselin Čajkanović notes: ‘Formally, and in name, the traditional Saint Sava is a Christian saint and a very zealous propagator of the Christian faith; essentially however, by his character and temperament, and by the myths and beliefs linked with him, he still belongs in the old pre-Christian time. One of the main character traits attributed to our Saint in folk literature is a strong propensity to anger and readiness to punish. Anger and punishment are frequently mentioned. In Čorovićs anthropology the Saint’s anger or act of punishment represents a motif often the main motif, in no less than 42 stories’.11
It would seem that the Saint also had a violent temperament and this character trait of vengefulness and punishment is a leitmotif not only in his hagiography, but in Serbian history in general. With his legendary status and irreproachable work, Sava’s violent and vengeful
temperament is also legitimised and conceivably aspired to. Sava also fought local tribes with his 7 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 23
8 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia, University of California Press (1998). P. XV
9 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 30
10 Mary E. Durham, The Burden of the Balkans, Edward Arnold (1905). P. 57-58
brother to secure Stefan’s rule and therefore military service is also canonised with the rest of Sava.12 The religious authority of Sava, in combination with these character traits, can instil a sense of moral authority in acts of punishment or anger whilst also imposing a sense of holy duty. Another notable character in Serbia’s long list of legends and Saints is Saint Vid. Although he does not make Anzulovic’s list of pivotal characters, Vid is one of the oldest and most well-known Serbian Saints. Vid (Svetovid) was originally the pre-Christian Slavic sun god and god of war and he, like many Saints, was re-crafted out of the Pagan world to be fit for Christian consumption.13 He was venerated after being martyred as a Christian by the Romans in the 5th century. St Vid’s day, June 28th, is the summer solstice. It is also the date of the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 and in the SOC, Vid became a central figure in the retention of Serbian national identity and another Saint with a violent connection to further give authority and holiness to violence.14 Although his day did not appear on the SOC calendar until 1860 as a holiday, the institution of his name day as a religious, national, and folk holiday after the closure of the 1913 Balkan War not only illustrates his popularity, but also the legacy of St. Sava by binding the state, religion, and people in to a united exclusive entity.15 Vid, and his name day, served as a rallying point for Serbian culture when national and folk institutions were shut down during Ottoman rule. The church and its saints allowed Serbs to retain a sense of exclusive identity and history. A Serbian scholar has pointed out, due to the war like characters of Sava and Vid, that it is possible that Sava is a continuation of Vid’s legend in a Christian context and the violent, religious leitmotif is a consistent factor in Serbian history. Alternatively another leitmotif is introduced; that of the martyr.
Building an Empire
With the weakening of the Byzantine Empire under the invasions of Romans and Turks, the Serbian dynasty, now under King Uroš I (1243 – 1276) had the opportunity to expand and unite other Slavic lands under the banner of Serbdom. If the Byzantines, the local political and religious centre, were to collapse than Serbia would fill the religious and political vacuum with empire building. During the early stages of the 13th century, Uroš I had expanded Serbian rule in to Montenegro and Kosovo at the expense of the Byzantine Empire and by the time of the death of his grandson, Uroš III (1322-1331), in 1331, the empire had been expanded in to Macedonia and
12 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 83 13 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 44
14 André Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the
Twentieth Century and Beyond, Basic Books (2003). P. 15
the Vardar Valley with the Byzantines conceding more ground.16 Serbia was clearly in the ascendency against their previous overseers. Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, also known as Dušan the Strong or Dušan the Mighty, son and murderer of Uroš III continued the expansion of the Serbian Empire further southwards winning a series of military victories that took the Serbian Empire as far as the Gulf of Corinth.17 Dušan christened modern-day Skopje with his coronation and as his capital and also doubled the size of the Serbian Empire. Dušan moved the seat of the Patriarchal autocephalous SOC to Kosovo thereby creating a centre for his empire in newly conquered territory. The land Dušan had won became the crowning achievement of Serbian state building. Dušan had conquered more land than any other Serbian ruler and embraced the conquered territory as truly Serbian, with new locations for his government and the church, rather than occupational and so this land became later known as ‘Old Serbia’. Dušan had reached the Adriatic which became a vital trade route for Serbia’s independence, distancing it from the Byzantine economic powerhouse of the region. There was a belief that Serbia truly was in the ascendency and was destined to take over the Byzantine Empire not only territorially as the regions greatest empire, but also religiously as the most prestigious Orthodox nation in the Balkans.18
Dušan’s Empire would have far reaching implications for the future and it became the symbol of a utopia of Serbian power and independence. Serbia had truly broken free of a faltering Byzantine Empire and proved herself worthy of her own empire. The land Dušan conquered also became coveted. His conquests would always bear the mark, in monasteries and peoples, of his rule and the areas, and specifically towns like Peć where the church was to be based, became sacrilegious.19 The areas of Macedonia, Kosovo, the Vardar Valley, and northern Albania, the areas contested by Serbo-Montenegrin forces in the Balkan Wars, became part of Serbia’s greatest moment of history and therefore and extension of Serbia herself. This historical claim would lay the basis for the territorial ambitions of the Serbo-Montenegrin Governments in 1912-1913.20 Dušan’s Empire became the utopia of Serbdom; Serbia at its greatest with access to the Adriatic, independence from Byzantine influence, and the aggrandisement internally and externally. Serbs moved in to the areas as settlers and the SOC saw an expansion of its followers. As a result of these achievements Dušan became the subject of legendary status and because of his state-building accomplishments, but particularly his ruthlessly conducted military campaigns, he became a hero in the eyes of Serbian history. His violent nature was also captured and the 16 Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War, Constable and Company (1914). P. 161
17 André Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars. P. 16
18 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 36
19 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 34
20 Neville Forbes, The Balkans: A History, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, and Turkey, Forgotten Books AG (2010) P. 160
antipathy shown towards him by his Greek subjects is testament to his truly medieval military style. His violence including the murder of his father to accede the throne, and sacking of towns, became valorised in Serbian folklore as the means to the most glorious of ends and continued the legitimised, and religiously affiliated, violence that is a leitmotif in Serbian folklore. 21
Losing and Empire
The son of Dušan the Mighty, Uroš the Weak, was unable to hold his father’s Empire together. Uroš the weak produced no apparent heir and without the nobility agreeing to select a new Emperor, Dušan’s lands were divided up into Serbian principalities and dukedoms. The most powerful player in this decentralised Serbian Empire was Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović with his capital at Kruševac.22 Meanwhile, the last vestiges of the Byzantine Empire had fallen prey to the new, Turko-Islamic Empire of the Ottomans. As the Ottomans consumed the Byzantine Empire, they began to successfully pressure the more southern regions of Dušans old Empire into
vassalage.23 Eventually, the Serb Princes and Dukes elected Lazar to lead them against an invasion headed by the Ottoman Sultan Murad I. This battle, which took place on June 28th, Vid’s Day, 1389, on the field of blackbirds in Kosovo has been mutilated and politicised in to a ballad that promotes martyrdom, victimisation, violence, and the duty of resurrecting a ‘Holy Serbia’. The story originated in a Serbian monastery around 1391 that was inhabited by the Serbian Patriarch Danilo III and he chronicled this momentous battle in The Narratives of Prince Lazar. The story is also built from tapestries and other texts written roughly thirty years after the battle.24
The legend begins with a supper on the eve of battle with his twelve allies from the remnants of Dušan’s Empire where Lazar seeks council about the upcoming battle. During the feast, one Knight, Vuk Branković, accuses another, Milos Obilić, and implies that Obilić will betray Lazar and fail to fight in Kosovo and betray the Serbs to Ottoman rule. Offended, Obilić sets out to prove his loyalty. Meanwhile, that night, the angel Elias comes to Lazar and offers him a choice to decide the battle. The angel says to Lazar:
‘Oh Tsar Lazar, of honourable descent, which kingdom will you choose? Do you prefer the heavenly kingdom, or do you prefer the earthly kingdom, if you prefer the earthly kingdom, saddle the horses, and tighten the girths! Your knights, belt on your sabres, and charge against the Turks: the entire Turkish army will perish! But if you prefer the heavenly kingdom, build a church at Kosovo, do not make its foundation in marble, but of pure silk and scarlet, and make the army take communion, and prepare, your army will
21 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 36 22 Ibid., P. 39
23 Ibid., P. 38 24 Ibid., P. 11
perish, and you, your Prince, will perish with it.’25
What the angel is telling Lazar is that he will only gain entrance to heaven if he martyrs himself and Serbia at the battle of Kosovo Polje. To die fighting the Turk is a holy duty and the loss of Serbia’s independence is a sacrifice, rather than a loss. Lazar laments but chooses the kingdom of heaven.
Lazar is also cast a Christ figure. The symbolism with Lazar’s narrative and the story of Jesus are uncanny.26 The twelve knights could well be twelve apostles, the supper, the last supper with the accusation of a ‘Judas’ among the knights, and the heavenly choice of martyrdom and heaven, or life on earth.27 By these means Lazar sacrificed himself and the sovereignty and freedom of Serbia were sacrificed so he could answer a higher calling from god, but there was a deep belief that Serbia and Lazar would one day be resurrected, just as Jesus was. In this role Lazar is posed as a Christ-Prince and the Ottoman Turks as the unholy Christ-Killers. Again here, violence is promoted and religious tales and national histories become interwoven to a political weapon.28
Scholars are unsure of the exact chronology of Milos Obilić’s quest to prove his loyalty to his leader Prince Lazar. He had gone to the Ottoman camp with a plan to murder the Sultan. Here, draped in a banner bearing the holy cross, Obilić used a ruse in order to gain access to the Sultan before the battle and when the Sultan drew near to hear Obilić’s offer, Obilić murdered the Sultan with a dagger before he himself was set upon by the Sultans guard and killed himself.29 Lazar died on the battlefield without knowing of Obilić’s sacrifice.30 The character of Milos Obilić represents several key aspects of the legend’s translation into a genocidal ideology. Obilić chose to martyr himself for Lazar and Serbia by killing the Sultan, a Turk. Not only is it considered a righteous act in defence of Christendom, but the killing also represents a sense of duty and loyalty that is noble.31 What was not so noble is the method. In an age of chivalry where noble behaviour was expected of landed individuals, assassination was an underhanded act contrary to the rules of war. The murder does not take place on the battlefield, but the Sultan’s tent, his residence, within the Ottoman military camp. In summary, Obilić, on his quest to prove his loyalty to his sovereign and people, chose to break the rules of war and martyr himself to save Serbs from Muslim Ottoman rule.32 The ends justified Obilić’s means. In an era of national liberation, for Serbia the
25 Ibid., P. 11-12
26 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 29 27 Ibid., P. 12
28 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 44
29 Mary E. Durham, The Burden of the Balkans. P. 37-39 30 André Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars. P. 22
31 Ibid., P. 27
19th and early 20th centuries, Obilić’s sacrifice and underhand tactics would be used to inspire and justify individuals and groups to commit a similar sacrifice; perhaps by entering the home of the local Muslim chieftain and murdering him. Obilić was also elevated to the level of a Saint, without official veneration, for his righteous sacrifice in defence of Serbia and Christendom. He became the most legendary member of the twelve Knights and an aspirational character and in the late 18th and 19th century his character was revived as a symbol of resistance and sacrifice against Turkish rule.33
The final character to be resolved from the tale of the feast is Vuk Branković, the accuser and villain of the piece. According to the Legends Vuk appeared on the battlefield with Lazar, and the Sultan’s son, Bayezid I, opposing them. It was an even battle and just when Branković could have committed the remainder of his troops to sway the battle, he chose instead to betray Lazar and withdraw.34 The legend purports that Branković coveted the Nemanja throne for himself and betrayed Lazar to the Sultan in return for the vassalage of the remains of the Serbian Empire.35 He became the symbol for ‘race traitors’ in Serb folklore. Race traitors could take many forms, as a Serbian vassal for the Muslim Ottomans, as a Christoslav convert to Islam, or those Slavs who betray Serbia.36 Vuk became a flexible label for anyone who collaborated with the Ottoman regime. Vuk destroyed Serbia with his selfish betrayal and other ‘Vuks’, or ‘Judas’, could not be trusted with the survival of Serbia again and his vassalage places him firmly outside of
Christoslavism and firmly the category of ‘the other’.
The truth of these events is irrelevant for Serbian nationalism and ideology and this ‘Legend’ passed down with religious authority from Danilo III’s monastery became the most devastating moment in Serbian history for the next five hundred years. The rise and promise of Dušan’s Empire, the Serb utopia, was shattered by the treachery of Vuk which forced a humiliating occupation for Serbia. As for the characters, they became among the three most known and two of the most venerated characters in Serbian history. Role models if you will. One, a Christ-Prince and leader who sacrificed himself for Serbia and God on the lances of the Islamic Ottoman army, and the other, a murderer who will stop at nothing and break the rules to prove his loyalty to Serbia and Christendom. The fact that he carries a cross is symbolic enough to show he is
representing Christianity stopping at nothing to stop the Islamic Ottomans. Lazar and Obilić, from the beginning of the 19th century onwards became the valorised heroes, unofficial Saints, of Serbia, role models, and mobilising myths for the freedom fighters against Ottoman rule from whatever generation. They represented violence, martyrdom, sacrifice, and cunning, all with a
33 Mary E. Durham, The Burden of the Balkans. P. 39 34 André Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars. P. 25
35 Mary E. Durham, The Burden of the Balkans. P. 37-39
Christian halo. Violence was acceptable, sometimes even if without restraint, and a holy act when committing against a religious ‘other’. Branković is not an explicit ‘Other’; rather the character has multifaceted ‘otherness’. He is a vassal and therefore by proxy a Turk, he was a race traitor and outside of Christoslavism for betraying his Christ-Prince and he is also a coward who hides from the grizzly act of battle and neglects his duty.
During the Balkan Wars, this role would be applied to a variety of nations. In the First War, converted Slavs were forcibly removed from their homes because they had become ‘Turkified’, The Albanians, Christian or otherwise, who chose to support the Sultan against the Balkan league were the cowards of battle, and in the second war, the Bulgarians for having betrayed Serbia. Those Serbs who refused to commit acts of violence against civilians and wounded or captured soldiers could also be branded as a ‘Vuk Branković’ for not participating in mass killing and ethnic cleansing. These ‘Vuk’s’ would be cleansed from Serbian lands by men and women attempting to replicate or by those who were perhaps inspired by Lazar and Obilić during the Balkan Wars. The legend, the centrepiece of Serbian folklore became a politicised history used to generate ‘others’ in a time of crisis. In the words of George Kennan; ‘it was hard for people who had recently achieved so much and this so suddenly, to know where to stop. Dreams of territorial expansion bemused many great minds. The air was clouded with visions of Greater Serbia or Greater Bulgaria’.37
Ottoman Rule
The battle of Kosovo Polje was the beginning of the end. One by one the Princes and Dukes became vassals of the Ottoman Empire. The holy Serbian nation had disappeared and in the early years of Ottoman rule the independent SOC church had disappeared too.38 What was left of Serbian identity was the broad štovakian dialect, the SOC traditions, and these legends about Kosovo and before. The loss of both Serbia and the SOC were devastating to the Serbian national consciousness, an embarrassment, and was a source of constant friction with the Sultan, the Porte, and their Turkic neighbours for they not only destroyed the Serbian independent church, but also the oldest Orthodox church in Byzantine Constantinople. 39
When Serbia came under Ottoman rule, a role of the ‘other’ had been described, although not allocated, a culture of martyrdom and violence had been established. The Ottomans would provide enough grievances to spur on a liberation movement and condition military attitudes with
37 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 2 38 Ibid., P. 42
their own conduct. With the advance of the Ottoman army came the traditional medieval ‘excesses’ of rape, pillage, and burning of towns. These military traits would prove to be consistent weapons of wars used by both Christian and Muslim. Slavs fled north from the Ottoman armies, the Ottomans gradually settled Turkic Muslims in the area, colonising the Balkans with Turks, and converting as many Slavs as possible, often forcibly.40 The Albanians representing the only Balkan national-ethnic group to adopt Islam en masse. Mark Biondich, author of The Balkans: Revolution, War, and Political Violence Since 1878, estimates that between one fifth and one third of the Balkans had become Muslim by 1700.41 This placed significant numbers of Islamic Turks, alleged killers of the Christ-prince and destroyers of Serbia, the political and religious others, in close proximity to the Christoslav Serbs. The Ottomans also built
hundreds of mosques and developed cemeteries and built fortresses and garrisons in Slavic lands.
The Ottomans established a firm presence in the Balkans and imported their religion, their peoples, and also their system of rule. The Ottomans devised a way to group their subject nationalities in a way that would not agitate national ambitions. The Millet system, the Ottoman system of grouping religious groups together and the Serbian Orthodox followers were grouped with Bulgarian, Greek, and Armenian Orthodox believers. In the Balkan region, the Greek
Patriarchate, with no direct SOC representation at the Porte, and under their permission a Serbian Orthodox church, subservient to the Greek Patriarchate and the Porte, was revived in 1557 with its seat at Peć in Kosovo, the same seat as Dušan’s Empire.42 This revived, but politicised
autocephalous church provided the sole Serbian institution and the bearer of Serbian national identity. With it’s cult of Serbian Saints, including Lazar and Obilić, it repeated the legends of Kosovo and the Nemanja dynasty as the national history and with the revival of the church, Serbs regained their self-esteem boosting, exclusive, in-group. This church was subsequently shut down, as a reprisal measure, in 1766, the Bishops in Montenegro, which had escaped direct Ottoman rule though its ferocious clans and mountainous terrain formed the de facto autocephalous church based in Cetinje.43
Despite the revival of the SOC, which expanded greatly under the Ottoman Empire, the Millet system bought with it a list of humiliating circumstances for Orthodox Serbs. Being largely of a peasant nature, land and titles were gifted to Muslim landowners who filled the ranks of the local
40 Tim Judah, The Serbs. P. 79
41 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 16-18 42 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 25
43 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans: Nationalism and the Destruction of Tradition, Taylor and Francis (2003). P.24
government system, denying Serbs the ability to gain land and revenue.44 Serb housing was restricted. No Serb could possess a dwelling more impressive than their Muslim neighbour; it could not be taller than their neighbours or painted in a more impressive manner.45 Orthodox peasants were also the only class in the Millet System forced to pay a poll-tax. Peasants were also forced to pay other taxes at a higher rate than the equivalent Muslim subject, be they Turk or otherwise. They were also forced to contribute free labour for the Ottoman Government whilst receiving no direct representation at the Porte. Serb Christians were not allowed to carry
weapons or even wear bright colours, especially green.46 These economic and physical restrictions were understandably humiliating for Serbs who having been stripped of the SOC twice, were being subjected to conditions they considered slavery. The Millet system reinforced the Ottoman presence of a religious and political other in the region. It provided a major incentive for Slavic conversion and for Serbs, the ‘Vuks’ or race traitors; received preferential treatment for their betrayal, and the only alternative was lengthy military service to obtain rights.47 Furthermore, the Millet System produced an economic ‘otherness’ of Turks to the occupation of Serbia. In
Montenegro, who were dependent on, but not subject to, the Sultan there was a more limited settlement program. Despite this, Muslim’s were still economically privileged. Christians were subject to national, social, and economic humiliation on a daily basis and bred a culture of jealousy, resentment, and hatred. There were considerable periods of peace and prosperity, but for national and ideological purposes the negative aspects of Ottoman rule were remembered more vividly.
Christian subjects were also subject to conscription into the Ottoman army, which often fought other Christian armies. One method of conscription used by the Ottomans was Devshirme which was the practice of taking young boys from Christian families to Istanbul and raising them as court officials, bureaucrats, or soldiers and Janissaries. Serbian nationalists portray this as ‘child tribute’ and an additional form of slavery, causing more tension. In addition, the practice of Devshirme, once it was portrayed as sacrifice of Christian blood by the ‘evil’ Turks, legitimised attacks on children in revenge killings by Serb Christians.48 The abducted children were considered dead to their biological families and thus the biological children of Turks could be targeted to even the score.
Janissaries and Wars
44 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the International Commission to Inquire into the
Causes and Conduct of the Balkan Wars, Carnegie Endowment Commission (1914). P. 163
45 Miranda Vickers, The Albanians: A Modern History, I.B Tauris & Co. Ltd (1999). P. 58
46 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 34
47 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 36
The Janissaries, a once an elite Ottoman unit, were often stationed in the military borders around Serbia with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Janissaries, the Sultans Imperial body guard, treated the local Serb villages like their personal fiefdom. The Janissaries rode about the town, expropriating at will and savaging the local population. The Janissaries were also often used to locally put down rebellious peasants and they too, in a traditional medieval style, sacked, burned, looted, and raped through rebellious territory, conducting reprisals as they went.49 Despite the Janissaries being abolished in 1826, the memory of their terror lived in oral stories and local histories.50 A British traveller in 1717, Lady Wortley-Montague, commented that ‘the oppression the peasants and the havoc of the Janissaries means that the mass of people were no better than slaves’.51 The Janissaries helped to enforce the ‘otherness’ of the Ottomans by placing Christians below the law. The actions of the Janissaries, and their barbarity, only helped to legitimise further violence in the name of revenge. The population remembered the infamous Janissaries and were aware of the humiliation of their community as the tales were passed from generation to generation. The unequal tax system, the exclusion from representation at the Religious council at the Porte, the daily humiliation of having to look inferior to your Muslim neighbour, and the terror of military units stationed locally, including the Janissaries, often resulted in revolts and attacks on Ottoman civil or military personnel. Orthodox peasants would organise and rise up against the Sultan, who would either yield concessions, or punish the target group with brutal reprisals of the most horrifying nature. Orthodox peasants also rose in solidarity with other Orthodox countries warring with the Ottoman Empire and when reprisals were anticipated, the local Christians would flee from the advancing Ottoman army or be caught in the savagery of the Ottoman reprisals. Inhabitants were often driven from their homes, with their villages burned and possessions looted, as a punishment for their disloyalty to the Sultan. Serbs, having no home to go to, would often travel north with their tales of woe and settle in the heart of Serbia. 52
Complementary and concurrently to these punitive expeditions were the intermittent wars in the Balkans over the Ottoman’s frontiers. Austria, Hungary, and other Christian nations, albeit Catholic ones, would make thrusting advances in to the Ottoman Empire through Serb lands, and Christian peasants would join the invading forces, or rejoice at their redemption from the ‘Evil Turk’s’ rule of slavery and savagery and take out their jealousy and sense of injustice on the local Muslim population. When the military favours turned, the Ottomans would punish the Christians 49 Mary E. Durham, The Burden of the Balkans. P. 40
50 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 36
51 Mary E. Durham, The Burden of the Balkans . P. 45
52 Benjamin Lieberman, Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing and the Making of Modern Europe, Ivan R. Dee (2006). P. 51
once more for their disloyalty to the Sultan, forcing yet more Serbs north. One such incident was the invasion of the Austrian Empire that took the as far as Skopje, the seat of Dušan and heart of ‘Old Serbia’, and the Ottoman counter attack was accompanied by what 19th century Serbian historiography would call the ‘Great Migration’.53 This migration, in 1690, was the Serb reaction the Ottoman reprisals and according to the legend it was this migration, forced by acts of barbarity, murder, rape, and mass depopulation, that transformed Dušan’s ‘Old Serbia’ from a predominantly Christoslav area, into a Turko-Islamic one though resettlement with a more ‘loyal’ Muslim population.54 This cycle of war and reprisal, revolt and reprisal, exodus and colonisation enforced a sense of antipathy, distrust, and violent resentment against the Serb’s Islamic overlords. The violence used against Serbs, would be consistently politicised to propagate a liberation struggle and a redemption from the rule of the ‘Evil Turks’ and insist that if the
Ottoman’s used violence on civilians to keep minorities within the empire, then such actions may be required to leave it.
The armed conflict in the region also contributed to a sense of lawlessness. With each invasion or revolt, political anarchy and the absence of the rule of law reigned supreme and the population free to do as they wished to the Muslim colonists who had exploited them.55 After each military challenge, the global realisation that the Ottoman’s power and ability to effectively rule the land was decreasing and banditry notably targeted against local Muslim tax collectors and landowner became an abundant and serious problem for the Ottomans. Christian peasants were turning, on a regular but not constant basis, to violent robbery as an attempt to escape the poverty inflicted upon them by the Millet system and to strike a blow for the local Christians against the evil Muslim ‘other’, the ‘Vuks’, or anyone else who profited at the expense of Serbs. The bandits became heroes and martyrs due to the conditions inflicted upon them by the Turks.
The rule of the Ottomans, though unbearably savage at times, brought long periods of peace and prosperity, where Serbian civilians were left unmolested and Montenegro escaped the direct rule of the Sultan all together. What is important is that within the context of Serbian national consciousness, savage events and aspects of Turkish rule that were remembered and politicised. The Millet system divided, and rewarded, subjects based on their religion, rather than ethnicity, so the Muslims in the areas, Turks and Slavs alike, became religious, political, and economic ‘others’ to the Serbs. There was no attempt to integrate rural Christian communities, such as Serbia and Montenegro, in to Islamic political or cultural life. The economic exclusion and the 53 D.S. Jordan & H.E. Jordan, War’s Aftermath: A Preliminary Study of the Eugenics of War, Houghton Mifflin Co. (1914). P. 103
54 Stevan K. Pavlowitch, Serbia: The History Behind the Name, C. Hurst & Co (2002). P. 68
55 Walter H, Crawfurd-Price, The Balkan Cockpit: The Political and Military Story of the Balkan Wars in
intrusive and humiliating restrictions also created a culture of jealousy, outrage, and desperation among the Serbian peasants where it was perceived that the conditions of slavery they faced in the Ottoman Empire were driving the Serbian population to extinction. When Serbs reacted by armed protest, or when Christian armies passed though, the Serbs were also subject to brutal reprisals. Also, the Ottoman policy of Devshirme legitimised children as a target for revenge and violence. Lawlessness ensued in the periphery of the last two centuries of the Ottoman Empire. Banditry, and violence against the Muslim population, became a popular expression of poverty and revenge during these times. So in summary, Ottoman rule reinforced the economic, political, and religious ‘otherness’ of Turks. The same can be said for the converted or collaborator ‘Vuks’. Meanwhile the Janissaries contributed to a culture of fear and normalised violence in and anti-Ottoman vengefulness. The themes of victimisation, martyrdom, persecution, and betrayal continued from the Kosovo Legend until the last days of Ottoman Rule.56
Bandits, Despots, and National Liberation
The ‘bandits’, or in their eyes freedom fighters, in Serbia and Montenegro were memorialised in representative songs and literature. One such hero, or villain, from the earliest days of Serbian history, was Marko Kraljević. He was the ruler of Prilep during the fall of Lazar’s alliance of Serbs, one of the cities allegedly depopulated of Serbs during the Great Migration.57 After the fall of Lazar he took on a dual persona, according to the legends, of both acting as a vassal for the Ottomans, but also acting against the Ottomans to the benefit of Serbs. Marko certainly took on the character of a bandit. In one of his Legends, Marko is kept prisoner by the Sultan for his crimes for the Serb people but the Sultan’s daughter had fallen in love with Marko. She set Marko free with the intention of marrying him, but as Marko narrates, ‘the Moorish maiden took me, encircling me with her black arms, and when I looked on her, on her black face and white teeth, a loathing got hold of me, I drew the rich-wrought sabre, and smote her on the silken girdle, that the sabre cut clean through her’.58 Marko represented a character of duplicity, treachery, and unrestrained violence. In this poem, he clearly distinguishes the Sultan’s daughter by the
association of Islam with the ancient Moorish Kingdom but also in racial terms and Marko reacts with murder inspired by the aggravations of Turkish rule. Marko classes her unworthy of love or affection and effectively dehumanises the Sultan’s daughter. Furthermore the deception of Marko resembles that of Obilić; use any means to be free, even deception and murder.59
56 André Gerolymatos, The Balkan Wars. P. 14
57 Paul Mojzes, Balkan Genocides. P. 38 58 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 14 59 Ibid., P. 14
The theme of violence against women and unrestrained violence in general, is a common theme in the legends of Marko Kraljević. Another legend, told to a British traveller and war observer in Macedonia in 1912, foretells of a Marko who lays dormant in a cave until the time comes to, ‘In the name of our motherland and cross; exterminate the enemy’.60 This legend was apparently known by ‘any Serb’. Marko’s character, idolised in song and literature, is clearly anti-Islamic with the tendency to dehumanise the anti-Islamic faith as evil doers and act with unrestrained violence, and even genocidal tendencies towards them. In the early years of Ottoman occupation, Marko was portrayed as a mediator between Serb and Ottoman, but his character was politicised to use as a symbol in the national liberation struggle.61 The story of a bandit called Grujo attests to this motif with Grujo maiming in his family and cutting off the breasts and arms of his mother. The selection of limbs and organs denote those used in motherhood and is a symbolic attack on the mother, the child as it depends on these parts of the mother’s body, and the concept of
motherhood. It is also another act of unrestrained violence where any act of violence is a credible tool for punishment. These bandit heroes were again, in Serbian literary tradition, set to song and poem as pieces of national history and treated as idolised as role models of Serbia.
The story of national liberation of Serbia starts during the Napoleonic Wars. The first revolt was led by an illiterate pig-farmer and bandit, an archetype of the Serbian in-group, against Turkish misrule. The leader, George Petrović otherwise known as Karadjeorge, had taken advantage of the Russo-Turkish war (1801-1812) to rise from 1804 until 1813 against the Ottomans in solidarity with the Serbs in slavery and in solidarity and with support of Orthodox Russia.62 The centrepiece of this revolt is Karadjorge’s capture of Belgrade from 1806. As Filip Višnjić, the bard of the 1804 revolutions portrays: ‘In the middle of the field Karadjeorge drew his sword, and cut away the heads of the oppressors, when he had cut the Turks to pieces, when he had cut the Turks, the oppressors, then George went in an entered the cities, he cut whatever Turk was for cutting, what was for handing over he gave out, what was for christening, he christened it’.63
It is alleged that during this ‘christening’ that Belgrade, a city comprising of 8,000 Muslims and 250,000 Serbs, was extermination of Muslims, very much in the spirit of Marko.64 During this legend, Karadjeorge ‘entered the cities and he cut whatever Turk was for cutting’. Firstly, the bard mentions multiple locations to imply Belgrade was not an isolated incident. Secondly, the cutting of whatever Turk, implies that the act was arbitrary, possibly including women, children and the
60 Walter H, Crawfurd-Price, The Balkan Cockpit. P. 155 61 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 56
62 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 20 63 Tim Judah, The Serbs. P. 75 64 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 24
infirm. Thirdly, the euphemism of murder with a christening is significant. It portrays the Turk as ungodly and unworthy of tolerance and or conversion.65 The only way to make these infidels holy is to execute them. The christening also confers the perception of a holy act and once more, the aura of religious authority. After Napoleon invaded Russia, the Ottomans were left to focus on the Serbian rebellion. It was crushed in 1813 with horrors, such as a tower made from Serbian skulls in the town of Niš, enslavement, the burning of villages, and Karadjeorge fled to the Austrian Empire.66 He would eventually be assassinated in 1817 and cast as a martyr for having died in exile for Serbia.67 As for the population, another round of punishment and depopulation ensued with more Serbs being driven from Old Serbia.
Shortly after Karadjorge, another peasant led- rebellion, beginning on Palm Sunday with the unfurling of a banner with a cross, between 1815 and 1817.68 Capitalising on his predecessor, Miloš Obrenović, gained the restoration of Serbia as a recognised political entity in a barbaric manner as glorified in previous legends. Allegedly, Miloš issued an order in 1815 he sent out an order declaring that anyone is Muslim dress should be executed.69 His ruthless campaign, in which many mosques and cemeteries, as well as Muslims and collaborators were destroyed, forced the Sultan to grant him the title of hereditary Ban of Serbia (a title of vassalage) and by 1830, Serbia was independent in all but name.70 Serbia still maintained Ottoman garrisons on the military frontier, pay tribute to the Porte, and remain under the leadership of the Greek Patriarchal Church, with Cetinje remaining the de facto Church.71 Serbia became an Ottoman autonomous region. After the murder and exodus of Muslims from Obrenović’s campaign, he secured in the truce with the Sultan, a clause compelling all Muslims outside of the towns and unconnected to the remaining garrisons to sell their property and leave. This was the first step in the redemption of Serbia from the ‘Turkish taint’.72 Serbia however, retained a sizable Muslim population in the towns.
The Serbs also gained the right to open their own primary schools in 1817 and within a year, 72 had opened.73 In 1830 Obrenović had himself crowned prince of the Serbian ‘Principality’ under the Treaty of Adrianople in 1830 and between 1815 and 1833, Miloš Obrenović I’s regime had settled immigrants and refugees who had fled from Turkish rule in place of the ejected Muslim 65 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkan. P. 23
66 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. P. 5
67 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Report of the International Commission. P. 23
68 William Miller, The Ottoman Empire 1801-1913, Cambridge University Press (1913). P. 56
69 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. P.29
70 Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War. P. 240
71 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 24
72 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans. P.31
residents.74 Obrenović attained the limited liberation of Serbia by pursuing all potential Turks with violence, forcing many to flee, and then forcing an exodus through legal treaties with the Sultan. He founded the second dynasty and the legendary status of the two peasants who had regained Serbia’s pride and the methods they used were not forgotten. However much of Old Serbia, southern Serbia, Kosovo, and Macedonia remained under Ottoman control and ‘unredeemed’ in the eyes of the Christoslav Serbs.
After the brief deposition and reinstatement of the Obrenović’s, with the son of Karadjeorge briefly taking the throne before his abdication, the Russo-Turkish war presented another
opportunity for an Obrenović, Miloš’s grandson, to redeem more of Serbia and pursue the dream of the old Empire that had been interrupted by the Turkish taint. The warfare between the Ottoman armies (with considerable Albanian support) and Serb and Montenegrin irregulars was truly horrendous. There was slaughter and looting, depopulation of areas on both sides, and a cycle of reprisal and revenge that ensured a mass exodus of Serbs from the south and Muslims from the North.75 At the end of the fighting in 1878, Serb armies controlled parts of Macedonia and Kosovo as well as the coveted Sandjak of Novi-Pazar and Niš. But under the ensuing treaty, hammered out in secret by the Great Powers of Europe, all but Niš was returned and a wave of reprisals on the Ottoman side of the order ensued.76 A blow for the redemption of Serbs and an intensification of self- victimisation by perceiving the international community conspiring with the Ottoman’s to keep the ‘sick man of Europe’ alive and Old Serbia unredeemed. The reality was that keeping the Ottoman Empire alive, kept Russia at bay. In this war, Serbian historian Milan St. Protić believed almost two million people from both sides were forced to flee.77
At the wars end, Serbia and Montenegro, but also Bulgaria, had gained total independence from the Ottomans and the clauses pertained to in the Treaty of Adrianople were extended to the new areas and an exodus of Muslims from the countryside followed. Bulgaria followed a similar project and it is estimated that the Ottoman Empire had to absorb over 800,000 Turkish refugees from these projects and the legacy of reprisals and bandit warfare they left behind in
unredeemed territory.78 The Serbian church also regained its autocephalous status in 1879 so the church regained the special relationship as a political took for the Serbian state. During this war for liberation, hundreds of mosques and cemeteries were destroyed in an iconoclastic purge of the physical memory of the humiliating Ottoman rule. Muslims were no longer welcome in Serbia, and neither were their places of worship. It was an attempt to completely wipe away the history 74 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 20
75 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 42
76 Lt.-Col. Reginald Rankin, The Inner History of the Balkan War. P. 241
77 Tim Judah, The Serbs. P. 87
and culture of the Turkish taint by cleansing Serbia of ungodly institutions. One mosque remained in Belgrade and while the fortresses were dismantled for good in Serbia, the Muslim ‘other’ presence was denied by destruction of both property and life.79
The bandits, despots, and national liberation struggle continued to display the motifs evident in previous elements of Serbian history. The legends of bandits and Grujo and Marko continued to valorise violence, including extreme and unrestrained violence, against a racial enemy and these legends would provide idols and historical precedents for later perpetrators of mass killing, or genocide, to follow. The revolt of Karadjeorge continued this motif as he murders any Turk for cutting, including women and children, while he redeems their soul with a Christening. The unrestrained violence with an aura of religious authority and Karadjorge initialises the wedded concepts of extreme violence and national liberation. Obrenović carried on these themes with his attacks on anyone in green under his cross banner. He even continued to eject Muslims after the war ended in 1830. In 1878 Serbia regained its independence under Obrenović’s and attacks on civilians and depopulation continued as a means to national liberation and the period was
characterised by a Serbianisation of Serbia and an iconoclastic purge of anything Muslim. Religion, atrocity, and national liberation went hand in hand with resentment for the Ottomans who carried out reprisals and these aspects of history became normalised and valorised for later generations to follow. The Obrenović’s rule was largely disliked with each ruler treating the principality like their personal fiefdom and lawlessness was the order of the day and Milan I of Serbia declared himself King of Serbia in 1882. The Obrenović dynasty ended in 1903 when a pivotal member of the 1912-1913 ethnic cleansing helped to assassinate the king.80
In summary, the national liberation struggle and bandity helped normalise and valorise extreme violence within the context of the national liberation struggle, and the cleansing of all things Turk was assumed to be a key component of the struggle.
Poetry, Literature, and Political Movements
During this time of Serbian national liberation, great advances in nationalist literature, and its radicalisation, were attained. During the nineteenth century the national liberation struggle required a national narrative that could inspire Serbs to resistance and violence against the Turks and Vuks. Instrumental to this inspiration was the adoption by authors, poets, bards, and the church, politicised the ancient legends and emphasised the anti-Turkish violence and attitudes in order to normalise and dehumanise the Turks they would later kill or expel. Marko, in the 19th
79 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 34 80 Tim Judah, The Serbs. P. 95
century, ceased to be a mediator between Turk and Serb and instead became the Turk killer.81 The sacrifices of Lazar and Obilić were valorised and emphasised as examples to follow. Their
matrydom instilled a sense of religious duty providing a sense of righteousness and holiness to the deeds. Obilić’s underhanded assassination was also used as precedent to use whatever means necessary to redeem Serbia. The deeds of Karadjeorge and the Obrenović’s were valorised in this way too. Biographies of the leaders with nationalist and violent tendencies appeared from the middle of the 19th century onwards. Konstantin Nenadović, who wrote a biography of the Karadjeorge published in 1883, noted that noted that ‘they killed Turks everywhere they found them, sparing neither the wounded, nor the women, nor the Turkish children’.82 This works of literature further preserved the unrestrained violence and national animosity for later
generations to use in their national liberation struggle to redeem the rest of Dušan’s Empire. Another biographer of Karadjeorge was Vuk Karadžić, from whom the Bosnian Serb leader in the 90’s, Radovan Karadžić would claim ancient descent. Karadžić, from 1804 onwards, began to develop the Kosovo Legend within the context of national liberation and added this order given by Lazar:
‘Whoever is a Serb of Serbian blood, whoever shared his heritage with me, and he comes not to fight at Kosovo, he may never have the progeny, his heart’s desires, neither son nor daughter,
beneath his hand let nothing decent grow, neither purple grapes or wholesome wheat, let him rust away like dripping iron, until his name be extinguished’.83
This addition’s significance stems from the curse set on those who do not fight for Serbia, specifically in Kosovo. Furthermore, the duty displayed was written so that Serbs would feel compelled to fight for Serbia. Lazar, Obilić, and Karadjeorge, all national martyrs, were welcomed as folk heroes and their deeds were valorised and memorialised in literature becoming national history centring on the progressive national struggle.
This was not Karadžić’s only work, he is also credited with first using the word ‘cleanse’ to describe the actions of Karadjeorge in 1806.84 In the beginning of the 19th century he was picked by the Italian romanticist folk writer Sergio Bonazza to represent Serbian folk literature for the developing market in romantic folk literature. He collected songs and legends, as mentioned above, and put them to paper in a four volume work that became regarded as history.85 Karadžić’s most influential work was on Serbdom and language. He believed, and noted, that all those who
81 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 37 82 Tim Judah, The Serbs. P. 75
83 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 39 84 Benjamin Lieberman, Terrible Fate. P. 10 85 Branimir Anzulovic, Heavenly Serbia. P. 75
spoke a štovakian dialect were Serbs by other name. This included Slavic peoples in Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Dalmatia. Karadžić believed that this language group, a common prescription for a national group, were part of the same national group and should be reunited.86 These 5 million štovakian speakers were divided confessionally with only 3 million being Serb Orthodox.87 According to Karadžić, the Slavs who spoke to Muslims were the treacherous ancestors who betrayed Serbdom for their Muslim overlords and cast them in the same light as Vuk Branković, the traitor.88 Karadžić’s inclusion of pan-Serbian, from all of the štovakian speakers, songs and his assertion that all štovakian speakers were part of the same national group recast the Serbian exclusive identity of the Serbs and reaffirmed the ‘otherness’ of the non-štovakian speakers. It also confirmed that in order for Serbs to live together in one national group, areas not under Serbian control were to be liberated. Karadžić, and later Dimitrije Obradović another distinguished linguist and entrant on Anzulovic’s list of three pivotal figures, helped redefine who is, and is not, a Serb in ethno-linguistic, rather than an explicit religious identity.89 The works of these linguists also defined what areas needed to be liberated from the Turkish taint and also where Serb kinsmen were living under the Turkish persecution. Not only did these linguists help set the target of where Serbia should liberate, but also defined who should live there as part of a ‘Greater Serbia’ of štovakian speakers.
One of the most well-known, and explicitly genocidal, pieces of literature comes from the Prince-Bishop (or Vladika) of Montenegro Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, simply known as Njegoš.90 He abolished the Metropolitanate theocracy and established Montenegro as an independent state.91 Njegoš, the political and religious leader of Montenegro wrote The Mountain Wreath in 1847 as an accompaniment to Serbia and Montenegro’s liberation struggle. The Mountain Wreath is a fable, presented as history, of a previous Vladika, Danilo, lamenting on the Battle of Kosovo Polje, the treachery of Vuk Branković, and the unholy Muslim Slavic clans who were warring with the Christian clans and Danilo was conflicted by the love for his Slavic brothers, but their betrayal of their faith. Danilo offered to end the blood feud with a traditional ceremony (Kum) in which each take the enemy’s children as godparents. Danilo’s Christians object claiming a baptism is required first so the Muslim clan leaders suggest a parallel Islamic ceremony but received scatological insults about Islam instead.92 In one passage, Vojvoda Batrić tries to persuade the Muslim leaders to convert or else:
86 Ibid., P. 74
87 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkan. P. 24 88 Cathie Carmichael, Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkan. P. 21 89 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 15
90 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 41 91 Mark Biondich, The Balkans. P. 58 92 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 42
‘Have done with minarets and mosques! Let flare the Serbian Christmas-Log; paint gaily too the eggs for Easter-tide; observe with care the Lent and autumn fasts; and for the rest- do what is dear to thee! If ye not take the council that I give, why then I swear by the name of Obilić,
and by these arms in which I put my trust, that both our faiths, they both shall swim in blood,
and that which is better – it surely will not drown’.93
While continuing for find a solution, Danilo is approached by the Abbot Stefan who recommends ‘Saint Obilić’, and his characteristics of loyalty, underhandedness, martyrdom for Serbia and for murdering the Islamic Sultan in his residence.94 For Danilo the decision was made. There was no end to the blood feud and the Muslim clans, the treacherous ‘Vuks’, refused to adopt Christoslavism. The two Christian clans decide to end the blood feud by killing the Muslim clans and Danilo, the ‘respectable’ head of the Montenegrin state and Church, exclaims ‘the blasphemers of Christ’s name, we will baptise with water or with blood, we will drive the plague out of the pen! Let the song of horror ring forth, a true altar on a blood stained rock’, and at the end of every the chorus states ‘The high mountains reek of the stench of non-Christians. We or the Turks will be exterminated’ and a chant affirming that the act must be done and so the Muslim community in Montenegro is exterminated.95
Upon return from the massacre, the Abbot Stefan offers Holy Communion to the Christian clans who are covered in blood. So to summarise so far, Njegoš constructed a theoretical situation in which Muslims could not live side by side with Christoslav Montenegrins. The Christian clans decide on the extermination, as shown by Vojvoda Batrić, and Danilo clearly incites them to the extermination re-using the euphemism of baptism for murder implying that only death could give the infidels salvation. The deed is done and upon their return the communion absolves them of their ‘sins’ without confession, implying that the killing of the Muslims was not a sin but a righteous act.96 In the closing stages, one straggler, Vuk Mandžukić, returns covered in blood and upset that his lucky rifle has been broken. The Vladika hands Vuk a new rifle and says ‘For Vuk Mandžukić, all rifles will be lucky’ and with this gift, the Vladika implies that the deed is still
93 Tim Judah, The Serbs. P. 76
94 Michael Sells, The Bridge Betrayed. P. 42 95 Ibid., P. 41
