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Dejan Djokić, "A Concise History of Serbia" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
01:12:09
An interview with Dejan Djokić
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- [00:00]
A
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B
Hello everybody, and welcome back to New Books in Eastern European Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm Eva Glisic, the host of the channel. Today we'll be talking to Dan Jokic about his new book, A Concise History of Serbia was published earlier this year by Cambridge University Press. Now, Dan Jokic is professor of Modern and Contemporary History and founding director of the center for the Study of the Balkans and at Goldsmith College, University of London. And since 2020 he has also been a guest professor in Southeastern European history at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Now, in June of this year, Dan is moving to Ireland. He will be joining the National University of Ireland Maynoot as Professor of History. Now, Dan's research brings together three main strands of historical inquiry. The Yugoslav war, the global and cultural history of the Cold War, and the history of Southeastern Europe since the midd Middle Ages. So three big chunks of history. Now, Dan, welcome to the show.
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A
Thank you, Eva, for this kind introduction. And thank you for expressing an interest in my work and in my new book.
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B
Dan, I'm really excited to talk about your book today, but I wonder if we can begin if you could tell us a little bit about yourself first.
- [02:24]
A
Yeah, well, you pretty much summed it up very nicely. I have very little to add. Perhaps what might be of interest is that I'm originally a modernist by trade training. I'm a historian of the 20th century Europe with a focus on Yugoslavia. So I'm not really even originally a historian of Serbia. So during the course of researching and writing this book, I kind of had to study earlier periods, including early modern and medieval history. So one of these trends that you mentioned is actually a recent one, but I intend to continue studying this. So in Ireland at Maynooth, where I shall be moving later on this summer, I shall be offering a module on Southeastern Europe since the Middle Age, in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. So I continue to study this period. But maybe it's interesting or important to know that I approached history of Serbia as a historian of 20th century Yugoslavia.
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B
Yes, it's interesting the pathways that our research can take. The course. Look, today we'll talk about a concise history of Serbia, which just for our listeners are aware, is a almost 600 page volume. So that's as concise as it gets. And really with this work you cover a full span of Serbia's history from the 6th century Slav Migration through until the present day. How did you approach this project and writing such a history? And maybe you can tell us a bit about the methods and sources that you used in the process.
- [03:59]
A
Yeah, thank you. So you're right, this is, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the longest book in the Concise Histories series. The book has been published, part of a Cambridge University Press series, Concise Histories, which includes titles on Germany, Italy, Bosnia, recently, also Albania, France and so on, and Greece. Many historians, many authors in this series actually focus on modern period, but I decided at some point relatively early on to cover earlier periods as well. And thanks to the understanding of my editor at Cambridge, I was able to kind of extend the original word limit. So the book is significantly longer than I had initially planned it to be. But you may approach it as a kind of de facto two volume concise history. A Concise History of pre Modern Serbia and a Concise History of Modern Serbia. It's true, I start with the 6th century, when in fact we say that the Slavs, we know that the Slavs, together with Avars, emigrated from somewhere beyond the Carpathian Mountains into southeastern Europe. And this was a process which lasted over a century or perhaps around a century. And from what we know, at some point during the later stages of this migration of the peoples, Serbs and Croats migrated to the Balkans. This was most probably in the early 7th century, but we don't know for certain now. This, you're right, this was. I mean, how did I approach was maybe the main challenge really initially how to structure the book and what would be the scope. So once I've decided to start from the beginning or from the earliest known beginnings, this was at the time of the migrant crisis. So we're talking about 2015, 16, when I was beginning to write this book, 2015 actually. And I thought it would be neat to begin with migrations of the peoples of Slavs and others to the Balkans and to central Europe, and end with the migrant crisis or sort of bring the book towards the present day. And I actually very early on decided that even though this book has to be chronological, because otherwise it would be maybe too confusing, I also wanted to focus on, to identify themes or perhaps these themes identified my research. So the title of the chapters reveal some of the key themes, such as migrations. Migrations is the title of the first chapter, but this is a phenomenon that occurs later on as well. Migrations is a very important theme in the Serbian history. Also empire, the relationship between the Serbs and empires that surrounded them or empires that they built or tried to build and so on. So these were some of the early challenges, early, early kind of dilemmas that I had. Another. And so, so, so I actually, as I said, I had to really study. I initially probably thought I would write a 19th and 20th century history of modern Serbia, but we already have something like that. And I wanted to do something slightly different also because I talked to colleagues. I presented very early kind of thoughts and ideas about this project at several history departments in the UK and in Europe. And several colleagues, early modernists, in fact, told me that they would really find books in this series much more helpful if they would be a little bit more on the pre modern period. As I said, most books in the series tend to focus on the modern period. So I thought actually that this book should probably also address colleagues who work on earlier periods and students as well. And this kind of. Who are the target audience? Who are the audiences? I mean, my publisher of course wanted a book that would be readable and accessible to non specialist audiences, to people who travel to Serbia, maybe businessmen, diplomats, journalists, students, undergraduate students. But I also wanted it to actually contribute in some way meaningfully to debates among experts on the specialists in the field. Very few have actually written on history of the Serbia. We have a lot of works on Serbia, but it tends to be on contemporary Serbia, not even on 19th century or early 20th century periods. Also wanted to engage with other Europeanists mainly, and perhaps Ottomanists because Serbia is kind of, you know, everybody seems to agree that Serbia played a main role in let's say 20th century developments, 1914 and so on. But actually nobody seems to work on Serbia and Serbia is out of, you know, if you're a Europeanist and you work on Serbia, you have to justify why is that European history? If you work on Germany or Austro Hungary, you don't have to justify this is European history or if you work on France. So, and this of course a common problem that historians of the Balkans face, not, not just of Serbia or perhaps of Eastern Europe. So, so these were some of the key. And another, another challenge was of course how to write the history of Serbia during such a long period when Serbia did not exist through much of this period. One way to address this is to, to focus on these themes that, that recur and that somehow hold the narrative together, I think. And I think writing modern period when there was no Serbia also enabled me to move beyond purely political history and history of institutions, but to look at people and cultures and also groups that traditionally are not included in these grand narratives. I mean women, I mean political dissidents in the 20th century, but also ethnic and religious minorities. Jews, Roma, Albanians, Muslims, vlogs. They all feature in my book, you know, in perhaps not, they're not central, they're not part of the central story which, which still focuses on the Serbs and on Serbia, but nevertheless they feature much more than in, in other works. And I, I hope that this, this, you know, I hope that, that readers will, will know, note and appreciate this. And I think what you also asked me about methodology, you know, another thing that was on my mind, that I'm writing a national history in an age of transnational and global histories. And I myself in my other beyond national history, and this was kind of going back to that. And at first I did not necessarily want to write this history, but I'm glad I did it. And in fact. Well, first of all, in the book, as I think the readers will see, I understand Serbia not necessarily just as a nation state, but also as a space that emerged in a borderland, in a trans imperial region in which goods and ideas and peoples moved despite imperial borders between let's say the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, or previously between the Byzantine Empire and various out Slav entities and Hungary further in the north, not to mention the 20th century divisions, ideological divisions. So I kind of understand Serbia as something that is not just a state, but also it's an idea and, and, and, and serves as a, as a borderland people in incidentally, Borderland is, is a title of, of my chapter on, on the early modern period as well. So it's another theme. Having said that also, I think we have to acknowledge that the nation state remains the dominant form of political organization in contemporary world. So writing a national history is not entirely meaningless. And I think that even though as historians we want to move beyond, we still have to think of the nation state as a dominant form of political organization. This became obvious during the migrant crisis and also during the COVID 19 when the state kind of reasserted its control over the borders and over the citizens and non citizens. Paradoxically, as a result of these were two global crises, the pandemic and the so called migrant crisis. But nevertheless the nation state kind of reasserted its position. So it wasn't necessarily something that, you know, so, so I was persuaded, I guess that this is a meaningful project. And very finally, in answering this first question, I think it's. I've already kind of hinted, but perhaps it's worth clarifying. The book was conceived and researched and written during the, the 1914, 1918 centenary celebrations or commemorations during the migrant crisis of 2015, 2016 and of course during the COVID pandemic. So I think, even though not to be a presentist, I try to write history, not to write history backwards, but it is inevitable that we all are influenced by the present in which we write about the past. So I think that's important to keep in mind that my thinking about the past has changed probably during this period as a result of the environment in which I wrote this book.
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B
Readers will recognize that this is not just an accessible history of Serbia, but also very dynamic. And I think you outlined those different strains that you try to keep together throughout this book quite, quite beautifully. The two questions that frame this entire discussion. You have where is Serbia and when is Serbia? And even though that sounds like two very simple questions, you do show that dynamism through those two questions. It's. It's quite a trickier answer to put together. I was wondering about this earliest period of Serbia and Serbian history that you opened with. This is not something that is easily accessible or that knowledge is not really out there for historians of modern Serbia, especially majority of which focuses on kind of contemporary or 19th century. So what do we know about this earliest period of Serbian history?
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A
Yeah, thank you for your kind words and thank you for this excellent question. We actually know very little and this was maybe a surprise to me as a modernist, of course I studied and I read about earlier stuff. But I always thought that some things are kind of, you know, we always say the Serbs and the Croats settled in the Balkans in the late 6th or probably early 7th century. But in fact, we don't have any sources to prove that this is just an educated guess. It's very likely that this is what happened, but they're not. Serbs and Croats are not mentioned or Balkan Serbs and Balkan Croats are not mentioned in historical sources until the 9th century. And so this is one of the problems. So about this earlier history, we actually know about them from medieval sources that were written two or three centuries later after these events. So, for instance, the main source which historians. Historians still use and study and debate medievalists, is a book by a Byzantine emperor, Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, who wrote a book, De Administrando Imperio, or On Governing the Empire Today. This probably would be described as some sort of a policy paper or policy recommendation to his successor and future emperors how to deal with his neighboring peoples, including the serpent Serbs. And so we don't even know if he was the author, but most likely he was the author. And the chapter on the Serbs includes the story of their origin and their arrival to the Balkans. And this was written in the 10th century by an emperor of an empire which at that point had lost control of much of the central Balkans, where the Serbs at that point had some sort of. Of polity, I wouldn't call it necessarily statehood, but had some sort of autonomous control over this territory. And you may notice, or the readers will notice that in the book, I use the term central Balkans. I think to me, it's more correct than the western Balkans. I hate this is this contemporary term. And it's totally. To me, it's actually ridiculous, quite frankly. Is there then eastern Balkans. Eastern Balkans is not now in the eu, so therefore it's not the Balkans. So it's. So in the central Balkans, there was. There was one, or perhaps more than one South Slav polity that was associated with the Serbs at that time. And so we, you know, so the. Anyway, I will not go into details, but the point is that this document was written in the 10th century, and it describes events of the 6th and 7th century. And it's almost certainly based on Byzantine documents which have since disappeared or have been destroyed, most probably in the Latin sacking of Constantinople in 1204. It's almost certainly also based on what the Serbs at the time thought was their origin, or if not the Serbs, then those who knew their language and communicated with them and so the idea is that the Serbs came from some unknown location in, in central or eastern Europe, from a white Serbia and so on. This is really very much a speculation. So we know very little. I mean, things improve later on with the late 12th, early 13th century with the emergence of the state of Rashka under the Nemenich family, under the Nemenich dynasty, which we also, we often refer to as Serbian, but actually its rulers rarely called it Serbia, they called it Serb lands. And these Serb lands included Rushka and also various other territories on the coast in the littoral, and Zeta and Khum and so on. So to really cut a long answer short, we know little. A lot of it is based on speculations. But at the same time there is some excellent research done by medieval. And so we, we have, you know, we can speculate with some degree of certainty about this pre 13th century period. Not, this is not to say that post 13th century period is very clear either. We still have actually not, not enough sources to be certain about, you know, some important questions. And another problem, and I will finish the answer to this question is that a lot of our knowledge or what we, we think we know or understand about the medieval Serbian medieval Balkans more broadly is really grounded in the 19th century romantic historiography, when suddenly, you know, the historians who had by the standards of the time were quite, quite, you know, excellent, but really from today's point of view were liberal nationalists. And so suddenly, so Professor Sima Cherkovich, later late Serbian medieval, as he has a beautiful sentence in, in one of his works in which, in which he said that, that all of these or many of these Serbian notables or nobles from the 13th and 14th century became Serbs in the 19th century. We actually, in some cases, we don't know what is their background, whether they're really Serb. I mean, they were Serb political in the sense that they were Serb feudal lords, lords loyal to the Serbian king or emperor. But they may have been of Albanian, of la or Greek origin. We don't know exactly. But in the 19th century they all became Serbs. And so I think one of the challenges was also to, and it was not easy because I had to rely on these predecessors who you know, in also 20th century historians. But I also had to be very careful about these interpretations. And in some cases I had to, to go to primary sources even about these early periods which I had never previously researched properly.
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B
Yeah, that would be an exciting experience for a modern historian to engage with that source space. As you were talking, I was just thinking about throughout your book, there's a very strong emphasis about all these different influences that are coming into a plate throughout the course of, of Serbian history. And one thing that is kind of constant is that Serbia or Serbs always perceive themselves as an entity position at the crossroad between east and west, for better or worse. Right. So can you tell us a bit about how did Serbia's medieval rulers or those who identified with Serbian polity, how did they navigate this position between east and west, between those big empires?
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A
And. Well, one of the dangers of writing this history of the Middle Ages is that, you know, it is often said that history is a foreign country, but I would say that medieval history is another continent to a modernist. It's not only a foreign kind of neighboring country, but it's another continent. So it's very difficult to understand really, really the thinking. And so this concept of east and west is very modern. They did not really think in those terms. To the extent that they thought about this, they probably saw themselves as living in the west in the sense that they lived to the west of Constantinople, which was at the center of the civilized world at the time. And so this would not be necessarily out of some desire to escape from the east east and to say we are in the west, but because east actually had positive connotations, but simply because geographically they were to the west of Constantinople. There is also a myth which has been attributed to Saint Sava, the founder of the Serbian Church, the first archbishop of the Serbian Church in the early 13th century, that he apparently said that Serbia is kind of both east and west, and neither east nor West West. But this is not true. This was actually attributed to him by a 20th century writer. He never said this, and he would not have thought in those terms. Right. However, so keeping this in mind, that we are, of course, you know, we are inevitably, you know, thinking about the past through the prism of the present, but thinking about keeping this in mind, it is also fair to say that it's especially 13th century Serbian kingdom, kingdom was a highly complex kingdom in some ways. I'm not saying that this was necessarily completely the case, but at some level, it was a dual Orthodox Catholic kingdom. Some of its kings, in fact, the founder of the Nemanichi dynasty, he was baptized according to Roman Catholic rites. It is often said, also including in historiography, that later on he was baptized, baptized for the second time according to Eastern Orthodox rites. This is highly unlikely. Historians now believe. It's important to remember that in the 13th century, even though this was post 10154 schism between the Eastern and Western Christianity, these boundaries were not so clearly defined. So this Serbian kingdom included both Roman Catholic dioceses and also Eastern Orthodox Orthodox eparchies. And some of these kings actually were Catholics. Also, the first King Stephanie's son, Stefan Nemenich the First, crowned. He received the crown from the Pope in 1217. Only two years later, his younger brother Rastko, or Saint Sava, whom I mentioned, already founded the Serbian authority Orthodox Church as an autocephalous Serbian. It was at the time an archbishopric, not patriarchate. It became a patriarchate later in the 14th century. So in 1217, 1219. So within two years, Serbia becomes a kingdom thanks to a crown that arrives from the Pope and also becomes an official religion, if you wish, becomes Eastern Orthodoxy. Now, there are reasons, of course, for the this political reasons. This was at the time that I Already mentioned, in 1204, Constantinople was sacked by Crusaders. And so this was the so called Latin period of the Latin Constantinople, which actually Byzantium is in exile and there's several rival Byzantine states in Nicaea and Epirus and Thessaly and so on. So Byzantine is in decline. And this enables the rise of Serbia. And Serbia, of course, used to loses the situation and it's politically opportune to receive, you know, also for the, for the Pope to grant a royal crown to this, you know, Slav ruler who might, you know. And so this is. There are various reasons for this. There are various factors involved. Also, economically, Serbia actually trades mainly with the Italian city states and with Dubrovnik and Dubrovnik merchants. There is a presence of Dubrovnik traders and merchants throughout the medieval period in Serbia and later on also in the Ottoman Empire in Ottoman Serbia, if you want. We mentioned previously that sources are scarce and we don't have many good sources. But thanks to the Dubrovnik archives, we actually know fairly quite a bit about this 13th and 14th century Serbia, thanks to the sources that are still preserved, preserved in Dubrovnik. So economically, Serbia kind of was trading more with this kind of, if you want to use a modern term, with the west, but really with Dalmatia and Italy, Venice, Venice and Dubrovnik essentially, and some other Italian city states. And very finally, and this is maybe most interesting is that the architecture of Serbian monasteries and churches is quite original. It combines Western and Eastern, it's Eastern Orthodox Orthodoxy, but the buildings are kind of, you know, they were built by Dalmatian and Venetian builders, so they resemble, you know, Gothic and kind of Italian churches of that period rather than Byzantine. This changes later on in the, in the kind of 14th century, there is a greater. In church architecture, you can see a shift towards Byzantine style, but even then, this is not completely so. Actually, many of these Serbian medieval monasteries don't look. Or in churches don't look typically or stereotypically Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox, but rather. Rather more Western, if you want, or Dalmatian, Italian. So I think this church architecture maybe is a good example of this symbiosis, if you want, between Catholicism and. And Eastern Orthodoxy and maybe Eastern west, to use a modern term.
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B
Yeah, absolutely. That's quite interesting. I mean, the art history of that period really shows that. Well, that synthesis, both in the architecture and in the production of art and artifacts that were included in those incredible edifices of that period. So apart from having to deal with the question where is Serbia? And you know that also where is West? And east? Is another set of questions that we need to think about in approaching this history. Now, your book moves chronologically to the Ottoman era and the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans, which is a major part, of course, of Serbian history, but also Serbian mythology and myth making. Can you tell us a bit about the position of Serbia and the Serbs during the Ottoman era? It's a long period, but what were some of the things that you think a reader should be aware of thinking about this dynamic?
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A
Yeah, thank you. First, I don't use the term occupation. I don't use Ottoman occupation. Maybe Ottoman era is better. And as you say, this was a long period. I mean, first of all, the Ottoman conquest of medieval Serbia was very long. It lasted nearly a century. In fact, if you consider the two kind of turning points. The Battle of Marica of 1371, in which Serbian King Vukashin lost. Marica is a river in present day Bulgaria and parts of it flows through Greece. Also, I think this was kind of considered a really a major, major military defeat, which opened the door for the Ottomans, you know, for their. For their kind of conquest of the central Balkans and the fall of Smederevo, the last Serbian city state, in 1459. So between 1371 and 1459, you have 88 years. This is longer than Yugoslavia existed. So this was kind of the period of the Ottoman conquest. This is how long it took the Ottomans to conquer this medieval Serbia. But this is not necessarily because they were trying all this time. This is a very complex period. We, of course, have a central event at Kosovo, at the Field of Kosovo in 1389, the Battle of Kosovo, which I cover in the book. I don't necessarily say anything new. Again, we don't know much, much about this battle. We know that both sides suffered heavy losses and both sides lost their leaders at Kosovo. Prince Lazar of the Serb coalition or Serb led coalition and Sultan Murat of the Ottoman state. They were both killed at the battle. The Ottomans did not immediately kind of conquer this space, partly because Murad's successors, Bayazit and Yaakub fought a sort of a dynastic conflict who would become the new sultan. And also because the Ottomans had to deal with, with, you know, rebellions in Anatolia and so on. So they couldn't. So basically they eventually return and eventually conquer this space. Not just Serbia, but much of the Balkans. But this is, this was a complex process, actually. This, this was also through Vaselage, through political alliances, not just through military conquest, conquest and initially Serbia. Serbia kind of disappears in 1459 when the despotate falls with the fall of Smederevo, the last Serbian capital. But church survives. I mean, traditionally, historians have already said that the Serbian Patriarchate at that time also is abolished, but it's not really. It probably kind of de facto ceases to exist in the southern parts of, of what was Serbia in present day Macedonia, Kosovo and so on. But in these northern parts, in what is present day central Serbia, this church continues to exist during the despotate and really probably also for a bit longer after the fall of Smederevo. And then of course, the patriarchate is re established in the 16th century during the Grand Viziership of Sokolu Mehmet Pasha or Mehmet Pasha Sokolovich or Bayo Sokolovich, who was one of the Muslim converts from present day Herzegovina. And he was, you know, this was in the, in the 16th century. One historian called it the era of a Serb Turkish romance. I think Professor Drago Oxen did use this because there was a very good relationship between, well, many, many of the, of the pashas, not just Sokolu Mehmed Pasha were South Slav converts. And then it later changes and then there is a series of pashas who are of Albanian origin, of ethnic Albanian origin. But the point is that Balkan peoples were not just subjects of the Ottoman Empire, but they also were active agents, mainly those who converted. In the book I also mentioned example of several poems, poets and writers who played a major role in the Ottoman cultural history at the time, who were Serb converts or Balkan converts. They came from Uzice, from Belgrade and so on. So I guess what I'm saying is that the position. So there is no more Serbia. Serbia disappears. This political kind of entity called Serbia or Serb lands disappears after 1459. And there is not nothing called Serbia within the Ottoman structure. There is for instance, a Bosnian ally it, but there is no Serbian. And the answer for the why this was the case is actually simple. It's not because of some anti Serbian bias, but it's simply because the Serbian state was much bigger and it basically disintegrated already prior to the Ottoman arrival into a number of, of feudal kind of realms and fiefdoms. And so the Ottomans, for instance, they called what is today Kosovo more or less in parts of Northern Macedonia they called the Vux land, the land of Vuk Brankovic or the former lord of this territory, and so on. And so for instance, what was the despotate of Serbia? This area, what is today central Serbia, was the Sanjak of Smederevo. Once Belgrade is conquered in 1521, the Pasha or the Vizier of Smederevo moves to Belgrade, but it continues to be officially known as the Sanjak of Smederevo, but colloquially it becomes known as the Belgrade Pashalik. But strictly speaking it was a Sandrak of Smederev. So there is no territorial organization called Serbia anymore, except in the imagination of Western Western travelers. I mentioned that in, in the book also Serbs as Eastern Orthodox, they, they become part of, of the Orthodox millet. Millet was some sort of ethno confessional. Organization. The Ottoman Empire, for instance, was not organized necessarily according to this territorial autonomies, but ethno confessional groups were, were placed in this millet. So there was a Jewish millet and there was a Christian millet. And within this Christian millet there was a Greek, Armenian, Serb and so on. The Muslims were not part of the millet system. They were above. And Roma who appear later were also not part of the millet system because they were both Muslim and Christian Roma and they belong, they were another group. So it was some kind of sort of not territorial, but let's say ethnoreligence, religious autonomy early on. We also know, actually recent historiography shows that in the early decades of the Ottoman rule there were also Christian Timars, sorry, Sipahis. Sipahis were landowners who were able to raise tax on the Timar, the land that they owned. And so we tend to think that all these landowners were Muslim. And eventually this becomes the case. But early on they're actually Christian, including Serb landowners. So, so this kind of break with the past was not instant. There is some sort of, some sort of continuity as well. And, and you have to remember that the borders changed frequently. You know, many Serbs migrated. So, so I think finally in, in, in answering this question, maybe it's important to remember that one of the main legacies of this Ottoman period is a migration both social and physical. So this theme migration, we of course all know about the great migration of the 18th century, sorry 17, late 17th century. There was also another migration in the 18th century further north in what is today voivodina and southern Hungary. Many Serbs, but also other Orthodox blacks, even Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians emigrated further north forth. So this is the physical migration about which we know quite a lot or at least which, which we think about when we talk of migration, about migrations. But social migrations were also important. First of all, I mentioned conversion to Islam. This is also a migration of sorts. And also previously agricultural and settled agricultural population becomes a nomadic kind of shepherd population. So this is another, another important migration, I would say social and this is significant also because previously the Vlachs occupied this position of semi nomadic shepherds, but now the boundaries between the kind of agricultural Slavs who are settled and the shepherd semi nomadic Vlaqs blur. This actually already happened prior to the Ottoman arrival, but it kind of accelerated with. So there is a lot of, if you want mixing of peoples as well as unmixing, to use Roger Brubaker's well known term. And so really, finally, so, so really we. This is a very long period. So to answer your question, what was the position of the Serbs is not easy in early decades was different from how it was later on. Ottoman Empire expands as far as Vienna and then shrinks back to Belgrade. And this of course affects the Serbs very much, much. And I think a lot of these negative stereotypes. And to be sure, the Ottoman Empire was in many ways more tolerant than some Western empires towards minority groups. The dominant groups were. The group were the Muslims, of course was the Muslim group. But nevertheless it was still an oppressive state. So, so non Muslims were second class citizens, to use another modern term. But it becomes more oppressive in the late 18th, early 19th century. And this is actually, this is a time when there was a collapse of the imperial order. So there was a kind of various rebel pariah groups of janissaries and Kirjalis or Karjaliye in Sarvakorat who kind of really don't recognize anymore the imperial rule. And they increase taxes and terrorize the local Christian but sometimes Muslim populations. And so I think a lot of these negative stereotypes, they talk about the ottoman yoke of 500 years, maybe to do with this later period when there was real oppression. What is today Serbia was under the Ottoman control for different. Again, we talk about 500 years of Ottoman rule, but this is not always the case. Some parts were under the ottoman rule for 350 years, voivodina even less so.
- [39:52]
B
Yeah, I think your book very clearly shows that it's not this theme of migration in various different meaning of the word, but also this border shifting, this constantly contracting and expanding empire, which certainly impacted the population there in various different ways. You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that with this book you tried to pull back, in a sense, from that traditional political history. And indeed, throughout your discussion of Serbian history, you draw in different intellectual and cultural movements that shape this space as well. Can you tell us about, you know, for example, the Enlightenment or the Romanticism, those huge European and global really movements, how do they reflect in Serbia and among that population that spoke what you say, the kind of mysterious Serbo Croatian language. It's hard to also. What is that language? Is another theme. Right. Of your book. So you can tell us a little bit about that period and that intellectual and cultural stream of your book.
- [40:58]
A
Yes. In answering the previous question, I kind of hinted in a way that these later events, let's say 18th century events, are perhaps arguably more important. The late Ottoman rule is more important to an understanding of modern Serbia. And this was also because 18th century we had three major wars between the Austrian and Ottoman empires that were fought in the central Balkans and parts of central, southern central Europe, if you want. Southern Hungary, in other words, affected those territories that were populated by Serbs or those populations that identified as Serbs or perhaps were identified as Serbs. And also there was a Russo Ottoman War which ended with the Treaty of Kuchu Kainarji of 1774, following which hugely important, following which Russians are officially protectors of the Orthodox populations of the Ottoman Empire, including Greeks, but. But of course Serbs also. So. But we should not only focus on wars. This was a period, as I already said early on when these, these seemingly, you know, we had hostile empires. And when very strictly policed and imperial borders, there were actually also hundreds of quarantines designed to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. But nevertheless, these were actually rather porous borders. So there was a military border which kind of ran across from, let's say present day Cnin in Croatia all the way to Timisvara in Romania. And this creation in Bosnia and Kraina, or military border, was populated by Serb migrants. And this was. But this border also, actually there were also many Catholics in There, there was a communication with Serbocrat speaking Muslims who were also employed sometimes as bordermen. And there were also Serbs who were border guards for the Ottoman Empire and so on. So you have this military society in which there is quite a lot of communication and exchange of goods and ideas and so on, on. And then you also have intellectuals. So the role of the Habsburg Serbs, educated Habsburg. So those Serb refugees who in the 16th and 7th century, 17th century, emigrated initially, like all the refugees, they were, of course, discriminated against. They were not always allowed to settle in towns and cities and so on. But eventually they do actually integrate quite well. They speak languages, they travel, they begin to kind of. They begin to propagate the ideas of nation, of the modern nation, speakers of the Serboprote language, of the Serbian language, regardless of their religion, therefore members of the same nation. This story is relatively well known, but I kind of tried to emphasize in my book, I tried to place it in the context of Europe at the time, rather than to approach it from the perspective of the 1990s wars, in which many authors, including some serious scholars, argued that this, this was the origin of, let's say, greater Serbian ideology, when everybody who spoke Serbian was considered a Serb. And obviously this is to do with greatest Serbian nationalism. To be sure, there was that. But I think we need to understand these ideas in the context of their own time. And I mean, particularly Vu Karadic, who was a great Serb language reformer and cultural historian, who, by the way, was not a Habsburg Serb. He was a refugee from. From Serbia following the collapse of the first uprising. And he was first Serbian uprising. And he was very much sponsored and encouraged to do his work by a Slovenian linguist and scholar, Yerne Kopitar, and later on by various German, German romantic writers and philosophers and enthusiastic intellectuals such as Goethe and Brothers Grimm and so on. And his predecessor, Docette Obradovic, was another important figure. I mentioned this. There is a whole section in the book about this. But as I said, I try to emphasize the contemporary context and to understand these. And I think, I guess the point I make in the book is not an original point, but it's something that is often neglected, especially in the Western historiography. That Enlightenment did not actually, it was something that did not spread beyond Western and Central Europe. This is not true. And for instance, Professor Paschalis Kitromilides, Greek historian, he has written about the Enlightenment among the Orthodox peoples. And I think this is very much the case with the Serbs, mainly because of this educated house of Serbs. So these ideas are Very important. And I would say they're just as important for the emergence of the modern Serbian state as the Ottoman misrule, which provoked a peasant uprising, which eventually becomes a national revolution in the early 19th century.
- [46:12]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a little bit of movement in scholarship in terms of thinking about these intellectual movements of this period and moving away from the west and central perspective active to see really how this and these ideas traveled. Like, there was, as you said, no borders that could stop these ideas for being.
- [46:33]
A
I mean, one shouldn't forget Russian influence also, of course, at this time, Serbian language is also very much influenced by. Russian. Church is influential as well. So. But, but actually Russian influences also could be seen as enlightening. In the book, I give an example or two examples rather, when at the beginning of the Serbian uprising, Serbs of 1804, the Serbs first approach Austria for protection against the Ottomans and Austria says no. They approach Napoleon. No. They send a delegation to Tsarist Russia and they're received by the foreign minister, Russian foreign minister, who happened to be a pope, Polish, a nobleman, Prince Adam Chartorisky, who basically tells them, Serbia is far. The Ottomans are our Ottoman, Turkey is our ally. You should go back and negotiate, but make sure that you have some sort of a government so that actually others know who represents the Serb. So this idea of a government in fact comes from Russia. And this is the reason why the first Serbian government was. Had a Russian name name, Something like that. Soviet is not a Serb word, actually. It's a Russian. So this comes from Russia. And later there was a Russian envoy or ambassador to Kara George's revolutionaries called Constantin Rodofinikin, who was in fact a Russian Greek, of Greek origin, who also tried to introduce and who tried to kind of counter the culture of heavy drinking among Serbs.
- [48:12]
B
That is a wonderful episode. Yeah.
- [48:14]
A
In your book about his. Basically, don't forget Russia. And Russia is not always this kind of, you know, it's also kind of a Western influence of sorts at times.
- [48:26]
B
Yeah, yeah. And again, in your book, I think you show really well the, the perceptions that we have of Serbian enemies and allies, that that's another thing where the borders shift in, in various different ways and perceptions change as well. You move your discussion into this period really of perpetual conflict. Right. Of post conflict society, Balkan wars, the First World War, Second World War, and Serbia suffers extraordinary human and material loss in this period. How did these events shape Serbia's political trajectory in the 20th century?
- [49:03]
A
Well, I think in a book somewhere, I think I write that Serbia may be seen As a perpetually post war.
- [49:09]
B
Society, it's a good phrase to use.
- [49:14]
A
I mean, it's true these losses were huge. Serbia suffered enormously. The figures were inflated. We don't yet know exact figures for the First World War, but certainly the figures that circulated during the Paris Peace Conference that were that the Yugoslav delegation there or the delegation of the Kingdom of Sgrats and Slovakia province, provided they were inflated. Similarly, figures of Serb and Yugoslav losses in the Second World War were inflated. We now know that it was not 1.7 million, but roughly 1 million of all Yugoslavs who died in the Second World War. And we know that roughly one half of that figure, so 500,000 were Serb losses and something similar. I think we can talk about the losses in the First World War. War, the Balkan wars, not so many, maybe, maybe 30 to 40,000. But still, nevertheless, these were huge losses. But I think I would argue that not just the number of losses, but the nature in which this violence was carried out. There were anti Serb pogroms and certainly war crimes, huge massacres of Serb civilians by Austro Hungarian troops at the beginning of the First World War. Something that was not properly discussed later on perhaps, perhaps because some of the violence was committed by South Slav paramilitaries, mainly Croat and Bosnian Muslim. There was also a Serb Serb conflict in the First World War. Many Serbs fought loyally for the Habsburg, in the Habsburg army against the Serbian army. And this kind of Serb Serb conflict is of course even more strong in the Second World War. So I think we have to remember, remember when we talk about this period of conflict that this is not just a conflict between Serbs and non Serbs, but there are also Serb civil wars, if you want the legacies of which are still felt to this day. Serbs are still divided. I mean, not all Serbs, but there's debates, you know, about the Chetniks and the partisans still there. But I think sometimes there is a tendency even among some scholars to maybe, to maybe single out. Serbia is almost uniquely unable to come to terms with this past. Actually legacy of the civil wars in other countries are still with us today in Greece, Spain, even in the United States, as we saw during the Trump presidency and the US Civil War took place much in the mid 19th century. I'm simplifying somewhat, but I just want. This is one of the aims of my book is to put Serbia in a wider context, to kind of fight this idea that Serbia is somehow always different.
- [52:02]
B
Yeah, yeah. You do know that this is the story about the special path, a special way that that is A bit of a myth as well, that Serbia in that respect is no different to some other societies that were.
- [52:14]
A
Well, my argument is largely based on Veid Kovuja's excellent paper, working paper on Serbian exceptionalism thesis. And I, I think I may add a little bit to that. But yes, true, I think I reject that. But at the same time there are some, some developments that are specific to Serbia, at least in the south, within the Southeast European or East European context. But, but true, yes, this. And so I think another point to make when, when you, when you mention, when you asked me about this legacy of these wars and this kind of. I think Serbia emerges from, from both world wars as both a victor and kind of martyr. They're both narratives. The narrative of victory is very strong after the First World War, but also the narrative of Martyhood. Serbia sacrificed so much and Serbia suffered so much for the sake of other South Slavs, for the sake of Yugoslavia. And similarly in the Second World War there is this, of course, the Serbs were subject to genocide, violence in the independent state of Croatia. They were victims also of German reprisals and so on. So they say the Serbs were also victims. But at the same time there is a very strong victor's narrative and I think it builds on the 19th century to a degree I use in my book. I borrow from Professor John Connolly's recent study of Eastern Europe From Peoples into Nations, in which he talks about Polish and Serb nationalisms as resurrectionary nationalism. So in the Serbian case, this is true, this idea of resistance to empires, you know, medieval battle of Kosovo, then various other, you know, early 19th century uprising against the Ottomans and so on. And in the Second World War, both the partisans and the Chetniks, the Serb partisans and the Serb Chetniks built on the tradition of the 19th century Anti Ottoman uprisings. Also young Bosnians, young Bosnians who were responsible for the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, they were actually rehabilitated in Titus Yugoslavia. They were seen as this kind of rebels against an empire. And of course, when this happens, you, Yugoslavia was in conflict with the Soviet Union, political conflict and so on. So this idea of Serbia, but then kind of it, it reflects more widely on Yugoslavia after the Second World War and also during the interval period as this nation that is a victor in wars, but also huge sacrifices and this constant resistance against the more powerful enemy. Yeah, is very important. I think that these are some of these legacies, of course, apart from, from very obvious legacies of huge demographic losses from which I think Serbia never really fully recovered.
- [55:08]
B
Yeah, I think these Legacies also come into the section where we talk about more recent history and of course, the series of conflicts that followed the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia in 1991. Can you talk about the impact of these conflicts on Soviet society today?
- [55:27]
A
This is very much part of the same question. I would say I would not even, even study necess. Yeah, I would not necessarily even look at them. Contexts are different. This is, this is absolutely true. But I think in some ways the Second World War returned in the 1990s, certainly in this kind of symbolic language, minus the partisans. As Milo Mangilas noted, the Chetniks and, and the Ustashes were back, but there were no partisans in the 1990s. Right. No, I think this is very similar, except that this was very much of war among the South Slavs, both First and Second World War wars. Actually, there was a violence and if you want, civil and brotherly fraternal conflict among the South Slavs and among the Serbs. But this, these, these, these wars took place within the broader context of the global conflicts. But the 1990s are different. This is very much a local conflict. And of course, the legacies of this fell to this day, you know, Serbs, a Serbian society still to come to terms with, with what happened in the 1990s. Serbs also, again, have this narrative that, that they're kind of, maybe now they're losers. They lost all the wars, but they, they, they fought against a more powerful enemy, especially the NATO. NATO alliance in 1999. And I think one of the legacies, again, Serbs suffered also, again, enormously in terms of. Only Bosnian Muslims or Bosnia suffered more in the 1990s in terms of population losses. But also, Serbs are emigrating. They continue to emigrate. Since the early 1990s, Serbs have left in large numbers. Some parts of Serbia are now depopulated. So in the book, I also, towards the end, I wonder if Serbia missed an opportunity during the 1215 migrant crisis to encourage some of the migrants to remain in Serbia and to stay in some of the almost depopulated villages. So these are some of the legacies, of course. And I think we now, of course, have a very complex situation. We don't know where Serbia is today, necessarily, again, even though we should know because of the disputed status of Kosovo. Kosovo, of course, is no longer under Belgrade's control. It is at least de facto independent. But this independent is not recognized by Serbia and it's not recognized by, by five EU member states, as well as Russia, China and a number of other countries. I guess another legacy is a complex relationship with Montenegro especially as regards the identity of Montenegrins. Are they Serbs or are they related to the Serbs? What about the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro? Relations with Bosnia Herzegovina highly complex. There is almost half of Bosnia is an entity called Republika Srpska or Serb Republic. Almost half of Montenegrins either declare a Serbs or declare their mother tongue to be Serbian or belong. More than half belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church. So there is this very complex relationship with its immediate neighbors. But these legacies also not just of the wars. I would again and I would also say these are the legacies of also coexistence together within Yugoslavia and also of these earlier population movements during the Ottoman periods which we discussed.
- [59:02]
B
Yeah. So there's a long continuity, I guess, of some of these questions that you.
- [59:07]
A
Ask that problem of. Perhaps I did, I didn't mention, but I write early on in the book about the problem of continuity. There is no real continuity between medieval Serbian states and the modern Serbian states. But there are other levels of continuity with the pre modern periods, not just the Serbian Orthodox Church, but also in terms of these population movements and migrations. And so I think I try to find a balance between rejecting the continuity completely and insisting on a continuity that, you know, somehow the Ottoman occupation, as some would say, was just a, you know, just a break between the Serbian statehood was renewed. I would say Serbian statehood was not renewed. It was an entirely new state. Very, very different. But there, there are some historical continuities as well, which I, I hope that I ident.
- [60:07]
B
You already flagged there a little bit. What I want to ask you next, and that's, you know, what are some of the common misperceptions and even myths about Serbia and the Serbs that you hold these.
- [60:18]
A
I don't think we have time to discuss many that exist within Serbia and among Serbs, but also outside. And so there are actually quite a few, I mean, in Serbia itself. But let's say that one that is maybe common but for different reasons is this special part path in history, the Zonderberg, those who are, let's say, to put it crudely, pro Serbian. They would say Serbs were always kind of this resistance and always, never occupied anybody. They were always on the right side and so on. And there, there is also another narrative that says that Serbs are always the bad guys, the aggressors, always anti modernity. And this, these narratives exist actually within Serbia, which I think think is great. It's good that there is some pluralism. I kind of reject both theses as too simplistic and try to find the middle ground somewhere. But I think also outside of Serbia and perhaps even among talking to my colleagues, your other Europeanists, from whom I have learned quite a lot actually. So this is maybe something I should have said, that in addition to reading secondary sources written by historians of Serbia, I have also learned a lot from historians experience of other countries or other regions of Europe, Western Europe or Southern Europe. But again, Serbia is always somewhere, you know, it's not really. Even those who are well meaning and who want to know more. Serbia doesn't really feature there. It's not really European. If you're a historian of Serbia, you really have to work very hard to persuade your colleagues that you are also a historian of Europe, perhaps that you're also also historian of Eastern and Central Europe. Serbia is not in the Balkans as a whole, is not really seen as a legitimate subject. So I hope that my book also addresses some of these misperceptions that actually by studying Serbia, maybe, maybe we can also approach European history more broadly, albeit from an unusual angle.
- [62:22]
B
Yeah, we talked a little bit about some of the, these myths and misconceptions and surprises. Can you maybe share with our listeners some of the kind of the big surprises that you came across, all little surprises that you came across during your research, whether that's some of the conclusions or sources because this is such a long period and so much material underpins this study.
- [62:46]
A
Yeah, I'm sure that some of the crises were because of my lack of knowledge. As I said, I'm a historian of 20th century Yugoslavia, so I really had to study. Even 19th century was a terra incognita for me in many ways. But let alone early modern and let alone medieval period, the medieval period is also extremely long. So the early modern, early Middle Ages we know very little about. And then of course the high Middle Ages we know a little bit more. So perhaps not perhaps, but definitely some of the surprises were due to my lack of, of kind of knowledge. But at the same time I was actually surprised that they seem to be some kind of perceived wisdoms or knowledge that have been repeated by generations of historians and nobody seems to question them. So one would be one. This may be a small example, but you know, it's often said that Serbian was the language of the Ottoman diplomacy and that it was spoken at the Ottoman court court in the 16th century. And I wanted to find out whether this was really the case. And of course, to a degree this language was not Serbian, but it was a South Slav vernacular. And it makes sense because many of these Pashas, as I already mentioned, were South Slav converts. And for instance, in their dealings with Dubrovnik, it made sense that they would speak their own language. Or in their dealings with the peasant militias of southern Hungary, who were mainly Serbia Serb, it made sense for an Ottoman pasha to speak his own, you know, to speak the common language. Right. So, but whether this, what, but was this language really called Serbian? And it took me maybe a week to find, to trace the source of this, that, and in fact I, I came across. And so Serbian historians have been citing a Croatian historian who wrote in the late 19th century in, in a journal that no longer is published in Zagreb that, you know, but, but in this journal, in this article, sorry, published in 1890, something he says that they spoke Croatian, which to me was equally strange. I mean, would they really call it Croatian? And then I managed to trace the original source. And this was a Venetian Dalmatian diplomat and traveler and probably a spy who traveled to Buddhim, present day Budapest and spoke to the Pash and, and notice that the court of the local pasha, they spoke what he described as Croatian because he was familiar with the Slav language of Dalmatia, I guess, which would be maybe called Croatian. But it's debatable whether these people actually declared, you know, felt as Croat or cultist. This was probably some Bosnian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Dalmatian, south slave vernacular. But it took, you know, I was surprised that nobody, or at least, least somebody may have done it. But I, not to my knowledge that, that nobody trades this and kind of try to problematicize this constant repetition that Serbian was spoken. And maybe more importantly this idea that, you know, even, even historians who are quite, I would say, belong to this group that is quite critical historiography of Serbia within Serbia. They would, they would approach 19th century, so called in inverted commas, emancipation from the Ottomans, uncritical. This is true that this was, you know, the period of emancipation in the sense that, you know, Muslims were leaving, Christians were kind of adopting this European values. There was a great, there were the beginnings of feminism and so on and so forth, but they completely failed to note two things. First of all, what about the Muslims who are leaving? Everybody talks about Serbia in the 19th century century finally becoming a land of immigration instead of emigration, but completely neglect, you know, tens of thousands of local Muslims, some of whom would have been probably Serb converts to Islam or certainly were Serbo Croat speaking, who were basically kicked out or who had to leave, or some of them chose to leave rather than live as second class citizens in this newly Christian dominated society. But nevertheless, nevertheless, I was surprised that this, this question is kind of neglected, but also that that similar kind of modernization and Europeanization takes place in Constantinople, in Istanbul, in the imperial center. So this is not just, you know, that Serbia is leaving this Ottoman Empire and enters Europe, but actually the Ottoman Empire also tries to enter Europe. I'm talking about mid 19th century, 1850s, 1860s. Yeah, so these were some, some examples, but there are many others, I guess. But I should leave it to the reader. Maybe the readers should be surprised when they read it.
- [67:36]
B
Oh, look, I was just gonna say I have so many more questions. You know, the history of Jewish presence in this, in this region comes through your book Women's History. Some extremely famous women that come from the region have shaped history of modern art, for example. The history, the story of vampires is also connected to the region, but so is the history of James Bond and the birth of that character. So readers will find so much more from whichever angle they approach it. Such a rich text. And Diana, I just wanted to thank you for sharing these insights with our audience today. And maybe before we finish finish, if you could tell us what comes after project like this? What is the next thing and what.
- [68:25]
A
Are you working on this project? But I have been also working, I mean this kind of a little bit like this historical periods and change of lead of rulers and change of state control over a territory. These projects tend to overlap as well. There is almost rarely a complete break with the previous project. So I've already started a few years ago working on a new project which would be a micro history of a kind of. It would be very auto. It will be autobiographical. It's a sort of a collective biography. Autobiography of the last generation of the Yugoslav People's army soldiers of whom I was one at the, @ the beginning of the war in Yugoslavia, specifically in Slovenia. So I've been working on that and that has been ongoing and I'm hoping, I'm now hoping to complete, complete that project in, in the immediate future. But at the same time I have been kind of working on this book because, you know, once you, you submit your manuscript, this is not the end. It's almost only the beginning. This post production lasted a long time and now of course, the book is out. You know, I'm very grateful that people like you want to talk about the book. So I'm very happy to do that. So I'm kind of, I'm not, I've not put Serbia behind yet, but I need a break from Serbia, a little bit to focus on this micro, micro history of the collapse of Yugoslavia that comes next. And I have some other ideas which I've also started working on, but maybe I should keep that to myself just.
- [69:56]
B
Yet. Thank you again for being a guest on the podcast and for sharing these wonderful stories. And I wish you really best of luck with your next project and also a period of rest before you jump into the next next thing. Thank.
- [70:12]
A
You.