yugoslavias implosion

CHAPTER 3
the Kosovo Issue
NATION BUILDING AND THE KOSOVO MYTH
The Kosovo myth, which endures in the consciousness of the
Serbian people as the pivotal event of their history, rests on the belief
that the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 brought disaster to the medieval Serbian
state, burying its chance for independence and ushering in a
long period of slavery under the Turks. The pledge to avenge Kosovo
has become the “vertical point of Serb history, for the Serbs have not
forgotten that they were banished from a land which was the repository
of all the most precious things they have created in their history”;
the liberation of Kosovo in 1912–13 meant a “return to their
homeland taken away by force.” 308
The Kosovo myth played a significant part in the creation of the
modern Serbian state in the early twentieth century. St. Vitus’ Day,
which had been instituted in the nineteenth century in the belief
that the Battle of Kosovo had been lost precisely on that day, was
first celebrated as a national religious holiday in 1913, after the Turks
had been decisively beaten. The holiday was said to honor the “chivalrous
contest and the conquest of evil,” and to symbolize a bloody,
unsparing revenge against Turks and Muslims in general. 309 The
308 Radomir Lukić, Značaj boja na Kosovu, kosovska epika i kosovski mit-simbol očuvanja srpske
nacionalne svesti (The significance of the Battle of Kosovo, the Kosovo epic and the Kosovo
myth-symbol of the preservation of Serbian national consciousness), Politika, June 28, 1989 .
309 Miodrag Popović, Vidovdan i časni krst, ogled iz književne
arheologije Slovo ljubve, Beograd 1976, p.129
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ChApter 3