by Fahrri Xhara and Goran Ivančević.

Abstract

According to the author, the Russian Academy of Sciences and Arts, in collaboration with historian Aleksandar Majorov, purportedly concluded that Serbs (“Servi”) are not an authentic ethnic group (ethnos) but originally a social category meaning “slaves.” The author argues that the modern Serbian nation is a relatively recent, artificially constructed identity, formed through the assimilation of Serbified members of neighboring peoples, including Aromanians, Albanians, Montenegrins, and Roma. Citing Serbian academician Radovan Samardžić (SANU, History of the Serbian People, 1986), it is claimed that by the mid-18th century, following the 1739 Belgrade Peace Treaty, Serbia’s population had dwindled to approximately 50,000–60,000, necessitating demographic reconstruction.

At that time, the majority population was Muslim. The text lists notable Serbs of non-Serb origin—such as Nikola Pašić, Mihailo Pupin, and Karađorđe—and asserts that many Albanian Catholic families, Montenegrins, and Roma were resettled in Serbia and later assimilated into Serbian identity. Furthermore, it is argued that Serbian national symbols, language standardization (by Vuk Karadžić), and the national flag were significantly influenced or imposed by external powers, primarily Austria and the Ottoman Empire, rather than arising organically from an ancient Serbian ethnic tradition. The author concludes that the Serbian nation was largely an 18th–19th century construct, promoted by Austria to weaken the Ottoman Empire, lacking deep historical ethnic roots south of Belgrade prior to this period.

The Russian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Russian historian Aleksandar Majorov have determined that ‘Serbs’ are not an ethnic group, but a social status — servants (slaves). The Serbian nation is a conglomerate of members of surrounding peoples who were Serbianized. Here is evidence from their serious historiographic and academic sources.

In the book History of the Serbian People, Book Four, Volume I, Serbs in the 18th Century (Belgrade 1986, p. 321), SANU academician Radovan Samardžić writes: ‘The Serbian people in Turkey had to be rebuilt from the ground up in the 18th century in order to reappear on the historical stage in the struggle for liberation.’

If they had to be rebuilt to reappear on the ‘historical stage,’ that means they had disappeared from that stage.

Later, on the same page, Samardžić writes: ‘…after the signing of the Belgrade Peace Treaty in 1739, at that moment according to V. Čubrilović, Serbia could not have more than 50,000–60,000 inhabitants.’ It says 50,000–60,000 inhabitants, not Serbs, which means that at that time, even that many, in the territory of today’s Serbia (including Kosovo, excluding Vojvodina), there were no Serbs. Moreover, it should be noted that at that time the majority of the population in Serbia was Muslim.

Thus, in 1740 Serbia was ‘empty.’ Who populated Serbia afterward, in what way was the Serbian people rebuilt, that is, how was the modern Serbian nation created, and what is the origin of the Serbs and today’s inhabitants of Serbia? Nikola Pašić was of Aromanian origin, Mihajlo Pupin of Aromanian origin, Branislav Nušić of Aromanian origin, Karađorđe of Albanian origin, Nikolaj Velimirović of Romani origin, etc., etc.

In the 18th century, hundreds of Catholic Albanian families from Kelmendi settled under Mount Rudnik (among them the family of Karađorđe), and today all of them are Serbs. Many Montenegrins settled in Serbia in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, where they arrived under the national name Montenegrin, and today they are Serbs. Today in Serbia there are one million Serbs of Romani origin, whom Miloš Obrenović settled and gave land.

There is no known Serb from Serbia, south of Belgrade, in the part that was under the Ottoman Empire, who is of ethnic Serbian origin.

Serbs are a newly invented nation, created by Austria to weaken the Ottoman Empire. Serbs had neither culture nor language before Vuk Karadžić, who was also created by Austria through Jernej Kopitar (and to separate Serbs from Russian influence, to uproot the imported Russian church language that had taken root in the liturgy, as well as the Slavo-Serbian language, while simultaneously relying on the Croatian tradition).

Even the Serbian national hat, the ‘šajkača,’ comes from Austro-Hungary, where it was a military hat, and Emperor Franz Joseph, dissatisfied with it, sold it in 1870 for a low price to Milan Obrenović. Before that, the Serbian national hat was the fez. Even today Serbia waves the flag given by the Sultan, while they themselves had chosen the red-white-blue flag like the Croatian one.

That was the Serbian flag in 1835 according to the Sretenje Constitution, but the Russians and Turks did not allow it, because such a flag, following the French model, was a symbol of freedom; therefore, the Sultan Mahmud II assigned them the flag, which the Serbs and Serbia still use today.”

References

Samardžić, Radovan. 1986.Istorija srpskog naroda. Četvrta knjiga, tom I: Srbi u XVIII veku. Beograd: SANU.

Čubrilović, V. [Samardžić 1986].

Ruska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti och Aleksandar Majorov.