National Identity (and the Other) in Serbia

National Identity (and the Other) in Serbia

The phrase national identity itself is almost the opposite of what the word seems it could be defined as at first glance. Rather than meaning the identity of a nation in a singular sense, a national identity in large refers to an imagined community depending on a range of characteristics that are thought to be shared by and only specific to a set of people. The national identity of a country can be displayed and built around many different aspects, such as religion, language, ethnicity, politics, values, and so on. The Southeastern/Central European country Serbia has a large combination of aspects that its national identity is built on considering its land-locked geographic location having a large impact on the forming of the country and, more recently in the past decade, its own independence. Despite the ranging interpretative characteristics and unique aspects of the country, Serbia’s forming of its own national identity can be displayed in three primary positions: ethnicity, religion, and language.

Ethnicity in Serbia – Early national Identity

The beginning of Serbia developing its own national identity can be dated back to the Ottoman Empire (Late 14th century). Murad I was the Ottoman Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1362 to 1389. Murad I was the first Ottoman emperor to use the Gallipoli Peninsula for permanent conquests in Europe. Murad’s initial conquests extended north into Thrace, the modern region of the Southeastern Balkans, which culminated in the capture of the second city of the Byzantine Empire, Adrianople, in 1361. This initial victory led to many other consecutive conquests by the Ottoman Empire into Southeastern Europe. The biggest steppingstone of the fall of the Serbian Empire began after the death of the childless emperor Stefan Uros V in December 1371. The cause of his death is largely unknown, occurring shortly after the Battle of Maritsa, earlier that year, in which most of the Serbian nobility had been destroyed by Turkish forces. The Serbian Empire was left without an heir and Serbian magnates, or velikasi, obtained rule of different provinces and districts throughout Serbia, in which their own offices were continued on as independent titles. Years of military struggles for control of the Balkan peninsula left major territories in Serbian lands unpopulated, which gradually were filled by Turks sponsored by Ottoman government, or other European populations spontaneously. Serbian territory at this point was mainly populated by impoverished native Serbians, sponsored Turkish peoples, or combinations of Bulgarian and Bosnian settlers.

    “The wars of this period precipitated changes in international relations, and in their aftermath entirely new social and political processes began to shape the lives of the South Slav peoples“ (Allcock, Lampe).

During the French revolution and the Napoleonic era, the overwhelming amount of peasant societies who preferred an aristocratic government style were challenged by the rising middle class who saw national interest in terms of expanding international commerce and maintaining control of strong Serbian borders, as well as deepening the channels of communication from central Serbians to Serbs residing closer to the Habsburg lands, who consisted of traders, members of profession such as law and accounting, and soldiers who had been accepted into the ranks of the nobility of Serbia. These areas were not subject to Ottoman Rule and were largely the contributors that played a crucial role in the expansion and growth of Serbian national consciousness, and in part, Serbian national identity. As European industrialization increased during the 19th Century, Serbia remained majorly in the periphery.

    “With the departure of the Ottomans, land distribution changed, and a huge number of peasant smallholdings—including immigrant homesteads—sprouted. These peasants had to deal with a new, increasingly Serbian, urban elite, whose wealth and power rested on the control of rural trade and credit and on the patronage of state employment”(Allcock, Lambe).

Serbia did experience economic growth and change, however, as the country became a nucleus of the exporting of primary products in European trade, mainly stemming from agricultural goods. Serbia developed into its own new primitive state, which opened the door for many Serbian refugees returning from Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina considering the new opportunities for cheap labor and farming jobs in the mid 20th Century.

Today, more than four-fifths of the Serbian population identify themselves as Serb, while the primary group of minority ethnic group is made up of Hungarians and Bosniaks. Because of the countries steady uprising into an agricultural power plant, consisting of large populations of working, lower-class Serbians, as well as middle class Serbs overseeing this flow of international commerce, Serbia’s native-dense ethnicity population largely contributes to one of its national identities as Serbia continues to display its strength as the fundamental origin of international commerce in Europe. Serbia exhibits a hardworking, fight-the-struggle population and its population fuels itself by this national identity in today’s fast paced, growing world.

Religion in Serbia – Distinct national Identity

Another distinguishing feature of Serbian national identity is Serbia’s majority religious following, primarily the influence of the Eastern Orthodox Christian church. Throughout the countries history, Serbian national interests viewed a strong autocephalous Serbian Orthodox Church as champion. This was interest was suppressed, however, during the Ottoman period due to its struggle against the influence of Greek clergy originating in Constantinople. From 1766 to 1832, the Ottoman regime had lessened the strength of the Serbian church, up until the consolidation of the Serbian state in the 19th Century which left primarily city-dwelling, urban agriculturalists predominantly supporting the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church.

    “the patriarchate of Constantinople was, of course, unable to assert its jurisdiction over the churches of Bulgaria and Serbia, which had gained independence during the days of the Latin occupation. In 1346 the Serbian church even proclaimed itself a patriarchate; a short-lived protest by Constantinople ended with recognition in 1375” (Meyendorf).

This religious aspect of Serbia’s national identity can be displayed as Serbians holding a strong belief in the church and their religion that contributes to their ethics and way of life as a hard-working population, fulfilling their duties to their country and to their God.

Serbian Language – Indistinguishable national identity

The most indistinguishable characteristic of Serbian national identity is the language spoken in the country as, unlike Hungarians or Romanians, the Serbian language is not a distinctive feature that sets it apart from its neighbors. Besides pronunciation and vocabulary that offer distinction from other Slavic languages, Serbian is essentially the same language as Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin. The grouping of this common language was known as Serbo-Croatian that includes Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin, and the language varies depending on the ethnicity of the speaker. How the Serbian language differs is in its written form. Serbian uses a modified version of the Cyrillic alphabet, which was originally developed by the Orthodox missionary brothers Saints Cyril and Methodius, and this writing style reflects Serbia’s long religious heritage.

Serbia gradually freed itself from Turkey over the course of the 19th Century, and at the end of World War I in 1918, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro were joined together to form one country, initially named the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and later named Yugoslavia.

    “The new government at first treated Croatian and Serbian as separate languages, alongside Slovene and newly standardized Macedonian. But soon it began pressing for a unified Serbo-Croatian (or Croato-Serbian)” (Browne).

To downplay differences between each country and emphasize unity, the kingdom lessened Serbian- Croatian language differences, hence the introduction of the Serbo-Croatian language. After World War II and the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, each of the new countries began to set their own language and literature standards of usage. The term Serbo-Croatian was dropped, and the two languages became very delineated from each other, with Serbia’s national language now being Serbian. Educated speakers from any of the four countries can converse with near full understanding, and some argue they are speaking the same language. In writing however, each country cannot follow each other when it comes to differentiating between Serbian and Croatian, so no joint writing standard exists. This indistinguishable aspect of Serbia, its similarity in language spoken to its other bordering countries, represents another common yet important national identity due to the only distinguishable difference is the written form of the country’s language and its mainly religious roots.

Serbian national identity can be connected to many different aspects of the country, but all display one common national identity. Serbia as a nation is founded on principles of heavily being influenced by religion, religious values, and a lower class commercially focused view of living that greatly unites the country. Serbian national identity can be connected to many different aspects of the country, but all display one common national identity.

Othering in Serbia

Othering in Serbia can largely be rooted to one ongoing political conflict, the Serbia-Kosovo dispute. In 2008, Kosovo declared its own independent from the Yugoslav republic, and Serbia continues to refuse Kosovo’s independence. Kosovo majorly consists of 1.8 ethnic Albanians, and the minority is represented by more than 100,000 Serbians. After attempting to attain administrative control over the ethnic Serbs residing in Kosovo who still were sponsored by the Serbian government through various judicial changes, Serbians felt their national identity was threatened, which resulted in large amounts protesting and road blocking. To protect Serbian minority, Serbian government forces were sent into the borders of Kosovo. In response, NATO led Kosovo peacekeepers were sent to meet the Serbian forces placed in Kosovo’s borders. In Serbia, the minority of ethnic Albanians and Kosovo natives continue to object the Serbian protests in Kosovo, and the minority of these populations represent external Othering in Serbia, as these negative characteristics being displayed and expressed come from externally rooted minority groups residing in Serbia.

"In 1998 an ethnic Albanian-led secessionist rebellion escalated into an international crisis....which culminated in 1999 in an air bombardment of Yugoslavia—by then a rump of the former federal state, comprising only Serbia and Montenegro—by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization” (Lampe).

References

Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Serbia. Britannica Academic. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://academic-eb-com.proxy.seattleu.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Serbia/110572

Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Ottoman Empire. Britannica Academic. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://academic-eb-com.proxy.seattleu.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Ottoman- Empire/111081

Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian language (BCMS). Britannica

Academic. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://academic-eb- com.proxy.seattleu.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian- language/66822

Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Kosovo. Britannica Academic. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://academic-eb-com.proxy.seattleu.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Kosovo/46111

Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Murad I. Britannica Academic. Retrieved February 2, 2023, from https://academic-eb-com.proxy.seattleu.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Murad-I/54315