This section is saxed from the 2018 publication “Nationalist Crossroads and Crosshairs: On External and Internal Sources of Albanian and Serbian National Mythology” by Matvey Lomonosov. Link to full pdf here.

The Serbian myth of Kosovo is a modern and intentional chauvinist construct

“The dissertation is composed of four separate articles. In the first article, I offer evidence that the Kosovo myth, which is often seen as a “crucial” supporting case for ethno-symbolist theory, is a modern ideological construct. For evidence, the article focuses on temporal, geographical and cultural ruptures in the supposedly long-standing “medieval Kosovo legacy” and the way the narrative was promoted among South Slavs in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It finds that Serbian-speaking diaspora intellectuals from the Habsburg Empire and the governments in Belgrade and Cetinje played crucial roles imparting the Kosovo myth to the Balkan masses. Thus, it is hard to account for the rise of national identities and local conflicts in the Balkans without a closer look at foreign intervention and the history of states and institutions. On a separate note, the first article illustrates that studying the ways how national narratives were disseminated may help to establish whether they are historically rooted or recent.”

“Ethnic Memories” from Above: The Promotion of the Kosovo Myth among the South Slavs (1830s–1930s)

Abstract: The Kosovo myth is often seen as a crucial supporting case for ethno-symbolist theory, which argues that modern nationalist narratives are necessarily rooted in centuries-long ethnic memories. Thus, many theorists of nationalism as well as area scholars see this myth as either the direct continuation or creative reinterpretation of a long-standing epic and liturgical tradition of the Slavic Orthodox population in the Balkans. Relying on secondary sources and archival data, this article traces the processes through which the Kosovo myth emerged and was communicated to the masses. It argues that the Kosovo myth is a modern phenomenon. First, the evidence shows that the medieval texts and epics referring to the Battle of Kosovo cannot be considered as genuine “ethnic memories.” Moreover, cultural rupture and change rather than recurrence characterize the history of these scattered, rare and ambivalent legacies. Second, the dissemination of the Kosovo myth constituted a long top-down and elite-led process instead of being provoked, welcomed or supported by broad masses of population. This process was well organized and began in a limited number of locations, and the motivations of the mythmakers were modern; the propagandistic materials did not rely on “ethnic memories” of the masses, but explained to the masses what those memories actually were. Methodologically, the latter finding suggests that studying the ways how particular communal narratives have been spread can help scholars to assess whether those narratives are ancient or relatively recent.”

Introduction

The myth of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo has played a remarkable role in the political history of the Balkans, and it is considered one of the most persistent nationalist narratives in Modern Europe. It helped Slobodan Milošević assume political power in the 1980s and is often held accountable for the growth of Serbian nationalism and even ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. Although the content of the Kosovo myth, its political uses and its social functions have been studied extensively (Belov 2007: 479–511; Bieber 2002; Čolović 2016; Djokic 2009; Duijzings 2000: 176–202; Emmert 1992; Malcolm 1998: 58–80; Mertus 1999; Popović 1998; Redjep 1976, 1991; Trgovčević 1999; Vujačić 2015 et al.), the question whether the narrative represents a modern ideological construct or a deep-rooted ethnic memory remains controversial.

Following traditional historiography and primordialist theory, many scholars view the myth as a foundation of Serbian historical memory and claim that its modern interpretations are mere reincarnations of centuries-old patriotic narratives (Bataković 1991; Bojović 1989; Ćupić 1991; Djordjević 1991; Gorup 1991; Jovanović 1990; Mihailovich 1991: 141–147; Pitulić 2012; Redjep 1976, 1991 et al.). Another group of researchers takes an intermediate position, attributing the popularity and power of the Kosovo myth to its pre-modern religious and epic antecedents, even if the latter were substantially reinterpreted by nationalists (Bakić-Hayden 2004; Bieber 2002; Belov 2007: 479–511; Čolović 2011; Duijzings 2000: 176–194; Kaufman 2003: 3–4, 30–31, 170– 171; Smith 1999: 153–155; Mock 2012: 157–162; Vujačić 2015: 130–138). Finally, revisionists emphasize cultural rupture, arguing that only scattered, not widely popular, memories of the medieval battle existed before the nineteenth century. These memories had never constituted an integrated set of patriotic beliefs and had not served as anchors of ethnic solidarities in the pre- nationalist period (Greenawalt 2001; Malcolm 1998: 58–80; Pantelić 2011: 447–448; Pavlović and Atanasovski 2016).

The state of affairs in the literature on the Kosovo narrative reflects wider academic discussions in the studies of nationalist mythology and nation-building. And if primordialism in these fields has long been debunked, debates between ethno-symbolists and modernists are still ongoing. Ethno-symbolists argue that most modern nationalist myths are causally linked to and have antecedents in the pre-modern memories and symbols of ethnic groups. Modernists tend to focus on conspicuous examples of “invented” history, saying that national leaders introduce completely novel narratives without taking pre-existing historical legacies into account.

This article concentrates on the Kosovo myth, which is often seen as “perennial” (see: Pantelić 2011). Instead of merely assessing pre-modern Serbian memories, I also look closely at the process of the myth’s dissemination. I argue that studying how nationalist myths proliferated helps us assess whether their appeal and success were dependent on the memories of pre-modern ethnic groups. I conclude that the Kosovo myth is a modern phenomenon, as I find that its dissemination from the 1830s to 1930s was an organized, top-down process, which allowed nationalists to create “ethnic memories,” not reactivate them.

The analysis is based on published primary and secondary sources as well as archival data. Its central chronological focus extends from the establishment of the autonomous Serbian polity to the beginning of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Although my attention concentrates on Serbia, Montenegro and the Yugoslav state, the activities of Serbs living under Ottoman and Habsburg rule are also analyzed.”

Literature Review and the Counterfactual Model

The myth of the Battle of Kosovo has been widely studied. Recent scholarship has usually focused on its political uses in the context of Yugoslavia’s collapse, the rise of Serbian nationalism in the twentieth century, and the bloody wars of the 1990s (Bakić-Hayden 2004; Bieber 2002; Čolović 2011; Duijzings 2000: 176–202; Malcolm 1998: 58–80; Mertus 1999; Mock 2012; Šajkaš 2008; Vujačić 2007, 2015). Earlier studies, most of them published in Yugoslavia, have addressed the role of the Kosovo memories in what has been called the “national liberation” (Bataković 1991;

Bojović 1989; Ćupić 1991; Trgovčević 1999; cf. Djordjević 1991). The process through which the narrative of the battle emerged in the nineteenth-century fiction and historiography has been traced meticulously (Čolović 2016; Kosanović 1989; Ignjatović 2014; Mihailovich 1991; Popovich 1991; Vujačić 2015). Scholars have provided a detailed description of some governmental and church endeavors to commemorate the Battle of Kosovo, particularly its 500th anniversary in 1889 (Durković-Jakšić 1989; Kraljić 1991; Pavlović 1989; Pejin 1991; cf. Emmert 1992; Tomashvich 1991). It is difficult to overestimate the contribution of all of these works to the scholarship on Serbian history and symbolic representations. As readers can see, while adopting an opposite theoretical stance, this article relies heavily on concrete research done by previous generations of Serbian and foreign scholars.

Despite this admirably long research tradition, what remains highly debated in the literature is the origin of the contemporary Kosovo myth as a powerful nationalist narrative. On the one hand, it is clear that a significant number of liturgical sources and Serbian epic folksongs have referred to the medieval battle over several centuries. On the other hand, disagreements arise when it comes to the popularity of these legacies in pre-nineteenth-century “Serbian” society and their causal relationship to the modern Kosovo myth.

A number of traditionalist scholars see the nationalist narrative as an extension of the strong religious cult surrounding the leader of the anti-Ottoman forces, Prince Lazar, as well as the widely popular epics devoted to the battle. According to their view, the intellectual and political leaders of the Serbian national movement simply introduced an already existing and popularly held patriotic narrative into emerging modern high culture. Often this argument is combined with a conviction that the Orthodox Church has served historically as a guardian of Serbian cultural identity (Bataković 1991; Ćupić 1991; Djordjević 1991; Gorup 1991; Jovanović 1990;

Leshchilovskaia 1994; Mihailovich 1991: 141–147; Pitulić 2012; Redjep 1976, 1991; Tomashevich 1991; cf. Vujačić 2015: 130–132). The second group of analysts thinks that the narrative of the Kosovo battle was transformed significantly by nineteenth-century nationalists, who supplemented it with an imperative of struggle for national unity, affirmation and self- determination. At the same time, they admit that the historical rootedness of the narrative in the pre-existing cult of Lazar, epics and medieval monastic texts allowed new nationalist interpretations to appeal to wider masses (Bakić-Hayden 2004; Bieber 2002; Belov 2007: 479– 511; Čolović 2011, 2016; Duijzings 2000: 176–194; Kaufman 2003: 3–4, 30–31, 170–171; Smith 1999: 153–155; Mock 2012: 157–162; Vujačić 2015: 130–138). Delving deeper into the past, Miodrag Popović’s (1998) path-breaking work attempts to discover the roots of the Kosovo myth in pagan beliefs and the knightly oral tradition of the region. He attributes the success of the nationalist mythmaking in the nineteenth century to the fact that it strongly resonated with the unmodernized irrational consciousness of Balkan peasants. Florian Bieber (2002) focuses on contemporary uses of the myth and stresses its evolution over time. However, he also tends to acknowledge the uninterrupted existence of popular memories about Kosovo over the centuries.

Notably, in many studies of the historical lineage and causality of the Kosovo myth, the tendency to admit path-dependent arguments comes from a methodological approach rather than substantial findings or theoretical preferences. Thus, the scholars in comparative literature and literary archaeology (Bakić-Hayden 2004; Gorup 1991; Mihailovich 1991: 141–147; Pitulić 2012; Redjep 1976, 1991; cf. Popović 1998; Čolović 2016) chiefly focus on the textual analysis of various manifestations of the Kosovo theme over time. Therefore, they simply pay insufficient attention to temporal and social ruptures in the circulation of these manifestations. Such an approach leads the narrative scholars to assume rather than to prove that the existence of historical antecedents should have caused the popular acceptance of the Kosovo myth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Finally, a number of researchers deny the relevance of the liturgical and epic legacies altogether. They argue that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the cult of Saint Prince Lazar was dramatically weakened and preserved in only a tiny number of isolated religious sites, while the epic folksongs celebrating the Battle of Kosovo ceased to exist in most of the South Slavic territory. Even the few who still referred to the battle in epics, chronicles and church literature perceived the medieval personages not as patriotic warriors but as dynastic rulers, admirable saints or simply omnipotent mythological creatures bestowed with supernatural powers. Therefore, the argument goes, it was Serbian nationalists – unconstrained by pre-modern memories – who created the narrative of Kosovo in the nineteenth century, tailoring it for political purposes and freely using available cultural material as a toolkit (Greenawalt 2001; Malcolm 1998: 58–80; Pantelić 2007; 2011: 447–448; Pavlović and Atanasovski 2016).

Reference

“Nationalist Crossroads and Crosshairs: On External and Internal Sources of Albanian and Serbian National Mythology”. Matvey Lomonosov. Link to full pdf here.