The ideology of the “Serbian World” is a continuation of Greater Serbian projects from the 19th century to the present day, and in order to counter that idea in Montenegro, it is necessary to emphasize the Montenegrin national question and to raise the issue of the functioning of the church as one of the basic preconditions for stability, it was stated, among other, at the panel “Understanding the ‘Serbian World’: Threats to Democracy and Identities” during the second part of the regional forum “Fractures in Democracy: Nationalism and Clericalism in the Western Balkans,” jointly organized by the Centre for Civic Education (CGO), the Regional Academy for Democratic Development (ADD) from Novi Sad, the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo (FPN), and the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).
The Director of the Western Balkans Network, Dr. Boban Batrićević, reminded that the “genius of evil” inherent in the Holocaust lay in the fact that Nazi Germany created a system in which people who were sent to death in crematoriumsfinanced their own destruction – their transport to the camps, their accommodation, and their food – because they worked, received wages, and paid to be exterminated. Through this analogy, he drew a parallel with the practices used by the current Serbian regime against its opponents.
“The ideology of the ‘Serbian World’ is a continuation of Greater Serbian projects from the 19th century to today, and unlike the idea of a ‘Homogeneous Serbia,’ here we do not have a public document showing the operational plan, it is concealed, and that is what makes it perversely ingenious,” he said.
Batrićević emphasized that the ground for resisting the ideology of the “Serbian World” cannot be prepared in advance, because it is an adaptive concept. In his view, that ideology controls 49 % of the territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H); in Montenegro, it has historical foundations and now controls the entire state apparatus, something it cannot achieve in B&H; while in Kosovo it is present only symbolically today.
“I believe that the ‘Serbian World’ is well organized, because it rests on intelligence, economic, media, and cultural paradigms, enabling Serbia to interfere in the independent states of its neighborhood,” he stated, pointing out as problematic the fact that Western partners fail to see how sophisticated this idea is in the case of Montenegro.
“Census data show that Montenegrins are disappearing without war, meaning that the ideology of the ‘Serbian World’ spreads most effectively where there is no war. That is why the Montenegrin national question must be positioned as a matter of European security. Without the Montenegrin nation, the stability of the Western Balkans is endangered. Reducing the number of Montenegrins to 35 or 30%, which is the goal of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian representatives in the Montenegrin government, means that the most numerous people in Montenegro will be excluded from decision-making, producing a state of peoples,” Batrićević stated.
He stressed that the problem of the Montenegrin nation lies in the fact that it is so small that it does not control state institutions tasked with cultivating the Montenegrin nation. “And our task is to try, with the support of Priština and Sarajevo, and then the EU, to raise the issue of the functioning of the church in Montenegro. Without a serious Montenegrin church, a church of the Montenegrin people, a church of Montenegro, an Ecumenical Metropolis in Montenegro, whatever we may call it – we cannot move forward,” Batrićević said.
Serbian historian Dr. Milivoj Bešlin stressed that from Serbia’s perspective the idea of the “Serbian World” is not new, but merely a new term, borrowed from Russian state propaganda, while the underlying concept has existed since the 19th century under the name Greater Serbia.
“This idea of the ‘Serbian World,’ which was at different times referred to as ‘our extended homeland’ during the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and ‘Homogeneous Serbia’ during the Chetnik movement, and at other times simply Greater Serbia, essentially encompasses all territories where Serbs live, which is why the Serbian question in the region was viewed as a territorial issue. Territory was what mattered to them,” he explained.
Bešlin noted that these concepts required uniting all Serbs into a single state. “But that is not all. This Greater Serbian imperial idea also included an attitude toward the ‘other,’ not only toward Serbian population. Among other things, it meant cleansing Muslim populations as a foreign element from this great-state creation, historically punishing Croats, and reshaping Montenegrins in terms of identity,” he said.
“A great-state concept must inherently rely on homogenization. If you abolish national and identity pluralism, you also abolish political pluralism. That is why the idea of the ‘Serbian World’ is ultimately directed against Serbia itself, especially against a democratic Serbia,” Bešlin declared.
He pointed out that contemporary Greater Serbian project has tactically abandoned its territorial ambitions, and instead applies the doctrine of limited sovereignty of neighboring states. “Borders are not questioned directly, but the state sovereignty is substantially undermined. In this sense, Vučić is not only the president of Serbia, but the leader of all Serbs in the region. The people are the bearers of sovereignty, so Vučić becomes the bearer of sovereignty in Serbia, Montenegro, B&H, and considers himself the bearer of sovereignty in parts of Croatia as well,” Bešlin said.
Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Sarajevo, Dr. Šaćir Filandra, said that B&H has been an object of the “Serbian World” for the last 150 years in an effective sense. However, in his view, the “Serbian World” and Greater Serbia are not synonyms.
“The Greater Serbia project has definitively collapsed as a state project, it is hard for its proponents to admit, but it has failed. The ‘Serbian World’ appears as a cultural substitute adapted to new geopolitical circumstances in Europe and is the result of the defeat of Greater Serbia,” Filandra said.
He pointed out that in Europe today, altering state borders by force is deeply unpopular, so the “Serbian World” is no longer based on territory but population and the standardization of one nation as an ethnic community.“Children in Banja Luka, Prijedor, and Leskovac learn the same language, shift to the Ekavian dialect, learn the same heroes, the same myths; severe cultural violence is being carried out. This process goes under the radar because it operates in the sphere of culture, which is generally neglected here,” Filandra added.
He emphasized that those who support and implement the “Serbian World” believe that the West will collapse that the EU will disappear; they dream of the collapse of the EU. “Thus, the ‘Serbian World’ is a pause while waiting for chaotic conditions, the collapse of the EU and the West, in order to create conditions for its full realization,” Filandra argued.
Writer, journalist, politician, and civil society activist from Kosovo, Veton Surroi, believes that Serbia today is closer to Russia than it was when it became a candidate for EU membership.
“Another paradox is that Serbia is now in a much worse state than then regarding the Copenhagen criteria,”Surroi said.
He added that Serbia is today a greater destabilizing factor in the region than it was when it opened accession negotiations. “Negotiations with the EU do not necessarily mean that the situation in Serbia will change,” Surrori assessed.
He stressed that the fundamental problem of the “Serbian World” is that the region lives in unfinished wars and unfinished states. “Wars are unfinished in B&H and Kosovo. Bosnia has lived for 30 years with the Dayton Agreement, which is a ceasefire agreement, while Kosovo and Serbia live in an unfinished conflict with the Kumanovo Agreement, which ended hostilities but is not peace. Now the war is waged by other means,” Surroi argued.
In his view, a significant problem for Serbia’s transformation is that the EU does not have decisive influence in this process. “The question of Serbia’s transformation is the key security and political question in Southeastern Europe. Not only the transformation itself, but the manner in which it occurs. It is very important that the transformation be positive, opening a democratic perspective for Serbian citizens rather than leading the state into renewed instability,” Surroi stated.
Strategic communications consultant and former adviser to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia, Svetlana Siljanoska, said that in North Macedonia people do not hear much about the “Serbian World,” and that Russian narratives are currently far more prominent.
She explained that harmful narratives from the East are present in the public discourse. “We have a huge cloud coming from the East with a strong anti-democratic tone,” Siljanoska said.
She added that this camp gathers forces and budget and has three goals – to keep the Western Balkans as unstable as possible, to keep the region as far from the EU as possible, and to keep the region polarized, because that makes it easier to influence and distract from real problems.
“In practice, we see that they are quite successful in distracting citizens from engaging with real issues,” Siljanoska said.
She noted that the anti-democratic campaign is successful because its narratives are monitored and given attention. “We need to talk about why they are successful, how to counter them, knowing that their goal is the erosion of democracy,” Siljanoska concluded.
The panel was moderated by sociologist Izabela Kisić from Belgrade.
MINA News Agency