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Chapter 4 • Nicola Mai
then, this nation-building process has known historical continuity beyond
any ideological disruption. Beyond the apparent fragmentation of the
complex social structure of South Eastern Europe, and across the many
geo-political divisions along ideological or ethnic lines, the emergence of
modern nation states should be considered evidence of continuity, rather
than change. This is particularly true when nation-building occurs in a
social environment that has already been shaped under the hegemony of
culturally homogenous forces.
Branimir Anzulevic’s analysis of the historical process by which Serbian
culture and society developed begins with an attempt to identify the
“psychological mechanism that makes it possible for large numbers of
basically normal citizens to engage in collective crimes or to accept them
without protest” (Anzulovic, 1999: 2). According to the author, this happens
when the dissemination of “pathological ideas”, such as “the fear of
being annihilated by an enemy and the confidence in one’s strength to
annihilate the enemy instead”, create a pressure under which strong bonds
develop between members of a particular group (Anzulovic, 1999; 2-3).
While evaluating and giving justice, even briefly, to the entirety of
Anzulovic’s analysis of the origin and development of Serbian identity
would flow far beyond the purposes of this essay, some of his work is particularly
relevant for the purpose of our study. He “explore(s) the process
through which the old myth of an innocent, suffering Serbia, and the concomitant
myth of foreign evildoers who conspire against its very existence,
influenced the behaviour of Serbs at the close of the twentieth century”
(Anzulovic, 1999: 4), since “the myths and legends created soon
after the battle of Kosovo were reinvigorated by the Serbian intelligentsia
to fan their compatriots’ nationalistic passions in the 1980s” (Anzulovic,
1999: 2). Therefore, from this perspective,
An event from medieval Serbian history permeates present-day Serbia’s
culture and politics. The 1389 Battle with the Ottoman Turks on the Field
of Kosovo still exerts a powerful influence on the Serbs, who see it as the
pivotal moment of their plunge from a prosperous, sovereign medieval
Balkan state to a stateless community within the Ottoman Empire, a condition
that lasted until the nineteenth century (Anzulovic, 1999: 1).
According to Anzulovic, then, the dominant Serbian myth of a Heavenly
Serbia, which attributes the Serbian defeat at Kosovo Polje to the Serbian
people’s commitment to the heavenly kingdom and to the choice of moral
purity over military victory, originally performed the useful function of
helping the Serbs bear the humiliation of defeat and endure century-long
domination by a foreign culture (Anzulovic, 1999: 5). Even when Serbia
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