Authored by Petrit Latifi

In 1878, Benjamin “von” Kállay writes in the book “Geschichte der Serben Volume 1″ that Serbian history was far darker than other European kingdoms and nations of the time. He explains how already during the Nemanjic era, there was a collaboration between the Tsar and the Serbian Orthodox Church. The author explains that Serbia lacked all capacity to become a civilized country.

“However, the revolt of the English barons against King John of Hungary resulted in the Magna Carta, while the abuses of the Serbian oligarchy, aided by unfavorable circumstances, led to the fall of the empire.

But we also find an example of this in the history of Hungary. The religiosity of the Serbian kings appears to the superficial observer as hypocrisy, and yet it was the most important thing. The church always proved to be a great support for the truly nationally minded princes.

Even Nemanja owed a good part of his successes to the clergy, and in the Middle Ages the church, not only in Serbia but also elsewhere, showed itself to be extremely lenient and yielding to rulers who built churches and monasteries and endowed them with goods. Religiosity, which was aimed at mere externals, was then, as it is today, not always synonymous with morality, and therefore the religious cipher of the Serbian Kings, despite their immoral actions, are by no means an expression of mere hypocrisy.

We do not intend to defend the moral condition of the Serbs at that time, but from the standpoint of historical objectivity, it would be unjust to accuse them of having the faults of all the nations of Europe at that time. Nevertheless, the same objectivity demands the admission that, despite the almost uniform stage of development.

Serbian history nevertheless appears far darker than the history of the other states of Europe, for the reason that, as we mentioned above, Serbia lacked the mediating element that would have carried the germ of a later civilization.”

Reference

Geschichte der Serben Volume 1 By Benjamin “von” Kállay , 1878.