Available via license: CC BY 4.0
Content may be subject to copyright.
religions
Article
Kosovo Crucified—Narratives in the Contemporary
Serbian Orthodox Perception of Kosovo
Emil Hilton Saggau
Department for Church History, University of Copenhagen, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark; ebs@teol.ku.dk
Received: 25 August 2019; Accepted: 1 October 2019; Published: 16 October 2019
Abstract:
In contemporary Serbian Orthodox texts, Kosovo is often referred to as the Serbian
“Jerusalem”: a city calling for a Christian defense. All Serbs are bound to heed the call in keeping with
the Kosovo “covenant” or “pledge” dating back to the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, when Serbian
troops, led by Prince Lazar, were defeated by the invading Muslim Ottoman army. The battle and
Kosovo in general have since then assumed a central symbolic role in Serbian nationalism and the
Serbian Orthodox Church. Furthermore, it has been claimed that the imagery and narratives of
Kosovo were the ideological backdrop for the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s. This article investigates
the development of the Serbian narratives and imagery pertaining to Kosovo and their modern form
in the Serbian Orthodox Church in order to trace what type of imagery is dominant. The main
focus will be on whether and to what extent the narratives of Christian defense and holy Serbian
warriors fighting in the name of Christ are dominant. This investigation seeks to discuss whether the
Kosovo imagery and narratives are formed upon and influenced by a broader Christian European
antemurale myth.
Keywords: Serbian Orthodox Church; Kosovo myth; religion and violence; Antemurale Myth
“We are fighting, [
. . .
] a new Kosovo battle, but this time we have no venerable Prince and
no Holy Cross.”—Metropolitan Amfilohije (1999, Kosovo Crucified)
A few months after the war in Kosovo ended in June 1999, the Serbian Orthodox Church published
Kosovo Crucified (Serbian: Raspato Kosovo, SOC Serbian Orthodox Church), a book containing a
long list of churches that were damaged during the conflict along with the names of missing Serbian
clergy and individuals, combined with testimonies and messages from the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The book is filled with a message of suffering, loss and misery.
Metropolitan Amfilohije opens his testimony in this book with the quote above, painting the scene
of the battle at Kosovo Polje in 1389. In the popular narrative, Prince Lazar is slain as he leads the
Christian Serbs towards certain defeat against the advancing Muslim Turkish army. The Serbs lose
their grasp on earthly power, but are instead awarded with heavenly power, and are promised that
there will be another battle for Kosovo and that Serbia will be resurrected (Judah 2009, pp. 29–47).
This was the tale the troops of the newly formed Serbian nation-state were told when they entered the
Ottoman and Muslim controlled province of Kosovo in the First Balkan War in 1912. The Serbs thus
conquered Kosovo and the land was resurrected in the early twentieth century, and so too was the
cult of Lazar (Judah 2009, pp. 36–37). Almost a hundred years later, the tale of Kosovo was told yet
again during the reawakening of Serbian nationalism in the dying hours of Socialist Yugoslavia in
the 1980s. Slobodan Miloševi´c (1941–2006) and his autocratic regime wielded the symbols of Kosovo
and the battle, both as he rose to power, and again in the wars in the Balkans that followed in the
1990s. The Kosovo trope was used to frame Miloševi´c’s opponents as the Muslim Turks standing ready
to attack the Serbs once more (Judah 2009, pp 327–37). In late 1999, on the ashes of these wars, the
metropolitan used the tale of the Kosovo battle to tell of the Serbian suffering at the hands of what
Religions 2019,10, 578; doi:10.3390/rel10100578 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions
Religions 2019,10, 578 2 of 18
he called Albanian terror. But the Serbs had by then lost faith in their leaders, so the metropolitan
called upon the Western Christian world to remember their 2000 years of Christian history and aide
the Christian Serbs “before God, before history and before the modern world” (Amfilohije 1999).
1. The Christian Bulwark in the Balkans
Throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe, various nations and states have depicted themselves
as the Christian bulwark against invading Muslim enemies threatening Christianity or a specific culture.
In Croatia, the Croats were often cast in various narratives as Catholic Europe’s last civilized frontier
against the Muslim Turkish “barbarians” or “infidels” during the Habsburg period (Goldstein 2005;
Zanic 2005). This image of the threatening Turks was not confined to Croatia, but spread throughout
Europe and the imagery of a Christian defense or bulwark to stop the Muslim tide developed in
various places including Hungary and Poland (Housley 2003, pp. 29, 131–59). In Serbia, the myth of a
Christian bulwark has taken many forms since the Ottoman advance in the fourteenth century, and the
Serbs have been depicted as the defenders of Christian Europe against the Muslims, or also as local
defenders against American or Habsburg imperialism. As Ana Antic (2005) notes, the Serbian myth of
being a bulwark became increasingly dominant in Serbia in the late 1980s and 1990s as a political tool
used in order to legitimize Miloševi´c’s new Serbian regime and its wars. The Serbs were thus cast as
Christian Europe’s outer defense against the Muslim Albanians. Albanian paramilitary groups were
often referred to as a form of “Turks”, thereby alluding to the popular image of the Turkish threat to
Christian Europe.
A crucial part of this Serbian nationalist self-image is the story and narratives pertaining
to Kosovo and the battle at Kosovo field in 1389. In journalist Tim Judah’s seminal work on
Serbian
history (Judah 2009)
as well as in Noel Malcolm’s work on Kosovo (1999), it is argued
that the Serbian narraritives on Kosovo and the battles are the most influential imagery of the
Serbian nation.
Malcolm (1999);
Judah (2009) and others (Bieber 2002;Ramet 2005;Greenawalt 2001;
Edwards 2015
) call the Serbian narratives on Kosovo the “Kosovo myth”. The Kosovo narratives are
argued to be highly influential in Serbia—both on government and in civil society alike—because they
are seen as the ideological backdrop for Serbian nationalism and the Serbian war effort in the 1990s
(Judah 2009;Malcolm 1999).
The contemporary Serbian nationalist narratives of Kosovo emphasize central fault lines between
East and West, Islam and Christendom, and various branches within Christendom seen from the
outside. This has made it into a prime example used by Samuel Huntington in his thesis in The Clash of
Civilizations (Huntington 1993, pp. 22–49; Huntington 1996). In Huntington’s opinion, a cultural wall
exists between Western Christianity and Islam, and it runs through the Balkans and Serbian territory.
However, as Florian Bieber (2002, pp. 96–99) points out, the use of the myth in the 1990s
and the popularized myth of a wall or fault line in the Balkans arose from the political use and
instrumentalization of the myth by the political elites of the Balkans. The Miloševi´c regime’s use of the
bulwark metaphor regarding Kosovo during its rule might be a mere political rhetorical tool, rather
than a reflection of what the Kosovo narrative was to the Serbs and the Eastern Orthodox Church
independently of the heated political turmoil of the 1990s. Huntington’s (1993,1996) and others’
perception of the wall might be a reflection of the Miloševi´c regime’s use of the myth, rather than the
deeper historical content of the myth in the Serbian Orthodox Church.
This article is therefore an investigation of the existence of the Christian bulwark and wall
metaphors—often called the antemurale myth—as well as an analysis of the myth’s structure and its
main themes in the Serbian and especially the contemporary Serbian Orthodox Church’s narratives
about Kosovo. The article aims to determine whether the bulwark, wall and holy warrior themes
existed in the Kosovo narratives before the 1990s. The analysis will also shed light on whether the
antemurale myth and the imagery of holy warriors defending a wall are present in a wider Eastern
Orthodox narrative, in which Byzantium, Russia and the Orthodox world are viewed as the center of
Religions 2019,10, 578 3 of 18
the world, in contrast with the antemurale myths in the Croat, Polish or Hungarian national narratives
that are bound together with tales of Western Catholicism and its center in the Roman papal seat.
The article consists of three parts, the first being a short introduction to the major contemporary
Kosovo narratives in Serbian historiography. The second section is an analysis of how the Kosovo
theme was revitalized in the Serbian national romantic period in the nineteenth century and whether
these modern versions of the Kosovo narratives contain an antemurale theme. The final part focuses
on the Serbian Orthodox Church’s contemporary approach to Kosovo before, during, and after the
Kosovo War in 1999, in order to discuss to what extent the antemurale theme is still present.
In this article, the terms Serbia and Serbs will be used continually to refer to states and peoples
across the span of several centuries. However, it is not intended to be an argument for the existence of
a homogenous Serbian nation throughout the entire period. The terms are simply used as a general
reference to those states and people, as well as the church, which use the term “Serbian” to describe
themselves. The terms arise from within the sources and their content is not critically assessed, because
that is not the purpose of this article. They mainly refer to the Serbian nation-state and its conception
of its people, and it is from this point of reference that the older medieval sources are interpreted.
2. The Function and Signs of an Antemurale Myth
Norman Housley describes the core parts of the bulwark myth in Religious Warfare in Europe,
1400–1536 (2003). He points out that the myth is essentially built on an Old Testament image of a
“covenant” entitling a people to holy soil. This entitlement entails the need for a defense in the face of
external threat, and in turn, the defenders are warriors of salvation (a variant of a crusader image)
whose actions mirror Christ’s own salvation of mankind. In the formation of nations and states,
this image was projected onto entire nations as a core state-myth (Housley 2003, p. 29). Along the
same lines, Pål Kolstø (2005) argues that a certain set of myths has been used in the creation of states
and nations in South Eastern Europe. The main function of these myths is the creation of defining
lines. According to Kolstø (2005), there are four types of these myths that all play the same role in
identity-creation as a way to distinguish between two groups. Kolstø (2005, pp. 3–5) calls the four
types sui generis,antiquitas, martyrdom, and antemurale.
The first two types of myths (sui generis and antiquitas) relate to how a people or nation was
created. The sui generis myth is a sort of cultural genealogy explaining where a nation rose from,
whereas the antiquitas is the idea that a people has always been the inhabitants of a certain place. The
third type, martyrdom, is a scheme in which the oppression and suffering of a group is used in order to
create an identity based on this suppression in which the oppressed is the moral superior. The last
type of myth is the antemurale, which describes how a group of people are the frontline and defenders
of a bulwark or wall (murale) for a larger whole. This type is different from the other three because here
a certain group acknowledges that they are part of a larger group, e.g., “the West” or “Christendom”,
rather than differentiates itself from all others. The group identity is instead formed because they are
“chosen” to defend the civilized world against chaos. Thus, there is no hard border all the way around
the entire group, as in a sui generis myth, but the group is defined by one extreme hard border, and all
other borders are de-emphasized. Many such examples are found around Eastern Europe, such as
the Polish self-imagery of being Western Catholicism’s last stronghold against the barbaric Eastern
Russians. Here, the all-defining border is between East and West, and the lines between Poles and
other Western nations are de-emphasized (Kolstø 2005, pp. 14–27).
The antemurale myth is characterized by the metaphors of being a bulwark, a wall, and the final
outpost of civilization, upholding order against barbaric enemies seeking to impose chaos. In this
constant defense of civilization or of a religion, martyrdom and the glorification of the valiant guards
come to play a substantial part in the myth. Kolstø (2005) points out that the myth can be fused with
religious overtones, so that the nation might be depicted as a group chosen by divine providence to
shoulder a heavy burden in a war against chaos. Kolstø (2005, p. 20) further unpacks this image,
arguing that “in this martyrological version the antemurale myth acquires messianic overtones: the
Religions 2019,10, 578 4 of 18
nation is seen as a collective Christ that gives its life for others.” There is one crucial difference between
Kolstø’s description of the myth and Housley’s. Kolstø argues that the use of this type of myth to
create difference is widespread, and that it is not limited to a specific religious group as it is used
by Muslims as well as Christians. In contrast, Housley traces the myth back to the Old Testament
and only identifies it with Catholic groups (Hungarians, Croatians and Poles). This may be because
Housley’s work focusses on Western crusaders and Catholic-dominated groups. He might not be
aware of the existence of this type of myth among other religious groups, such as the Muslims and
Eastern Orthodox groups, which Kolstø refers too. Housley’s description of the myth is, moreover,
much more bound to Christianity and the Old Testament, while Kolstø argues that the myth can exist
without such religious overtones. Kolstø notes that such a religious theme exists, but that the bulwark
myth can also be secularized. An open question is then whether the same biblical references exist in
the Eastern Orthodox bulwark myths which are held by the Serbs as do in the Catholic bulwark myths.
Another question is whether the Serbs use the same imagery in which their soldiers become images of
Christ when they defend their nation. This will be discussed further throughout this article.
3. The Formation and Rise of the “Kosovo myth”
In the following section, the contemporary Serbian versions of the national narratives of Kosovo
will be briefly introduced. These are often simply referred to as a whole as the Kosovo myth. The
purpose of this introduction is to provide a short overview of the dominant imagery, narratives
and symbols.
The Myth
Needless to say, there is nothing called the “Kosovo myth” within the vast body of the Serbian
Orthodox Church’s (SOC from hereon) literature, liturgies and description of saints. The SOC often
speaks of a Kosovo “pledge” or “covenant” which is closely linked to what the church considers
its spiritual and physical heritage in Kosovo (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church). The conception of a
“Kosovo myth” is instead made up as a description from an outside perspective of a series of narratives
and folkloric imagination about Kosovo within and beyond the Serbian Orthodox Church. This
framing and analytical concept is an academic construction—and often comes from quite a critical
point of view on Serbian nationalism and the SOC. The construction is not homogenous as it often
relies on different sources and describes different periods in Serbian historiography. The uncritical use
of the concept of a “Kosovo myth” as a homogenous one, and the mixing of the political or religious
types of myths and sources without regard to their context and what the myths actually contain,
often leads to simplistic claims. Several authors, such as Tim Judah (2009); Noel Malcolm (1999) and
Alexander Greenawalt (2001), have been criticized for this. Malcolm has been greatly criticized for trying
to disprove the Serbian myths with what he calls “proper history” and in doing so providing grounds
for racial and ethnic claims, a discussion Kolstø (2005) unpacks. Others, such as Tim Judah (2009)
and Branimir Anzulovi´c (1999), have been criticized for turning the Kosovo myth into an ahistorical
myth always present in the Serbian people, thereby indirectly arguing that the Serbians have always
been inclined to ethnic cleansing in the name of Kosovo because they are filled with “Ancient Hatred”
(Bieber 2002, pp. 97–98).
Therefore, there is not a single “Kosovo Myth”, but rather a series of interrelated ones. In order to
avoid the pitfalls hinted at above, I will continue to call the Serbian stories (factual and imaginary) of
Kosovo narratives, thereby focusing on their content. The actual correlation or instrumentalization
of the narratives in relation to the Kosovo War in 1999 or to Serbian nationalism in general is not the
focus of this article.
The first of these Kosovo narratives is about the creation of the Serbian Orthodox Church and
the Serbian medieval kingdom in part of today’s Kosovo. This narrative contains the history of the
Serbian dynasty of Nemanji´c, who became kings after having been rulers (Zupans) of the region of
Raška. The Serbian realm of Raška covered much of today’s Kosovo and southern Serbia. Its concrete
Religions 2019,10, 578 5 of 18
borders are heavily disputed, but its heart was the Stari Ras fortress (Old Raška) on the border between
today’s Kosovo and Serbia. The Nemanji´cs were pivotal in the creation of the Serbian kingdom, which
they ruled until the fourteenth century, and the Serbian Orthodox Church, which was founded by two
of the first Nemanji´cs, St. Sava (1174–1236) and his father Stefan Nemanji´c (later canonized as Saint
Symeon, d. 1199). In this narrative, the creation of the Serbian medieval state and church is bound to
this family, often called the “holy root”, and to a series of sites created by them. A major group of these
sites are monasteries in today’s Kosovo. The SOC archbishopric was moved to Pe´c in Kosovo in 1253,
which later became the residence for the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch up until its final abolition by the
Ottomans in 1766. This first narrative’s major theme is the portrayal of Kosovo as the home of the
Nemanji´c dynasty, their state and their church, which in turn makes Kosovo the “holy” cradle of the
Serbian people (Pavlovich 1989, pp. 32–94). After the Ottoman conquest in the years after the battle at
Kosovo Polje, the SOC’s Patriarchate was preserved as an institution in various forms, which many
historians have identified as a central factor in the formation of the proto-national Serbian identity
(Greenawalt 2001, p. 54).
The second narrative is about the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, which is described in a series
of folkloric poems, called the Kosovo cycles, and a variety of older ecclesial sources. This narrative
was written down and standardized in the romantic period of Serbian nationalism at the end of the
nineteenth century by the influential Serbian writer Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic. Karadzic’s version,
which since became the most widespread version of the narrative, is the story of how Prince (Knez)
Lazar Hrebeljanovi´c died as he fought with his army against the invading Ottomans at Kosovo Polje.
Despite all the historical debate around what actually took place on that fateful day in 1389, the folk
tradition contains a few central traits (Malcolm 1999, pp. 58–80). At the beginning of the narrative,
Lazar gives up his grasp on earthly power in order to receive heavenly power. In doing so, he accepts
his impending death and the destruction of his realm, as well as Ottoman and Muslim suzerainty over
his people. In the poem, he does so when he accepts the news from Saint Elijah who appears to him
in the shape of a grey falcon sent from Jerusalem by Mary, the birth-giver of God (Theotokos). Saint
Elijah says:
“Lazar! Lazar! Tsar of noble family, /Which kingdom is it that you long for most? /Will you
choose a heavenly crown today? /Or will you choose an earthly crown?”
(John and Vuckovic 1989)
Lazar then chooses heaven and gathers together twelve Serbian clerics in order to prepare wine and
bread before his final supper. At this event, a Serbian “Judas” reveals himself in the form of Lord
Vuk Brankovi´c, who accuses the young knight Miloš Obili´c of being a traitor. Obili´c, enraged by
this accusation, rides out alone in a quest to kill the Ottoman sultan. He succeeds but is slain while
Brankovi´c betrays Lazar on the battlefield. The poem’s narrative about Lazar is clearly built on a
classical imago Christ scheme, as the story of Lazar mirrors parts of the narrative about Christ. He
accepts the message of his impending death and holds a last supper with twelve clerics, and the poem
underlines how, in doing so, he becomes a saint. The image of Lazar clearly builds on a classical
Eastern Orthodox hagiographical or iconographic scheme of the noble lord who accepts his death and
suffering, and in doing so is elevated to martyrdom.
There are two other elements in the story of the battle of Kosovo Polje which became essential
to the myth; firstly, that the battle took place on 28 June, which is “Vidvodan” (St. Vitus Day), and
secondly, there is the side story of the Kosovo Maiden who seeks her fianc
é
at the battlefield (in some
tradition her fianc
é
is Obili´c), while she washes and weeps for the dead Serbian soldiers, and brings
wine and bread to the wounded in a sort of last supper scene. The Maiden became a central figure
depicted by many Serbian artists, such as Uroš Predi´c in his famous 1919 painting The Kosovo Maiden,
and is today part of the national personification of Serbia. This narrative about the battle receives its
significance mainly because of its revival as a national narrative in the creation of the new Serbian
nation-state in the nineteenth century. Until the standardization of the folkloric tradition by Karadzic
Religions 2019,10, 578 6 of 18
and its application by the poet Njegoš, there was not a uniform tradition and, according to Noel
Malcolm, Lazar and the Kosovo battle had little significance in Serbia (Malcolm 1999, pp. 78–80).
There are very few concrete references in the original Serbian sources that suggest the existence of an
original antemurale myth. However, in the Catholic sources about the battle, both an antemurale and
crusader themes are present (Malcolm 1999, pp. 78–80) and fit into the Western Catholic perception of
the Muslim advance and threath to Europe (Housley 2003).
The third narrative about Kosovo is the story of the Serbian “Exodus” or migrations from Kosovo
in 1689–1692 and again in 1737–1739. The Serbian Orthodox Patriarch of Pe´c led both migrations from
Kosovo to the southern part of the Habsburg realm on today’s border between Hungary and Serbia.
The background for the migrations was two failed Serbian rebellions against the Ottomans during
the many wars between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs. The narrative about the Serbian migration
often dwells on the continual struggle for freedom, which time after time led to Serbian suffering
and eventually an Exodus from the heart of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This “Exodus” (Serbian:
“Velika Seoba”—the great migration) is often described as the final destruction of the Serbian control of
Kosovo, after which the region was slowly taken over by Muslim Albanians (Malcolm 1999, pp. 131–41;
Pavlovich 1989, pp. 96–101).
These three narratives about Kosovo are all entangled and together reinforce the “Grand” Serbian
narrative about the Serbian historical experience in Kosovo. The Kosovo myth is often reduced to
the narrative of the battle at Kosovo Polje in 1389. However, the battle only receives its importance
through the two other narratives, which tell the tale of what Kosovo is (the Serbian cradle), and how
the battle is the first step in the gradual Serbian loss of control over Kosovo (reinforced by the Exodus).
The fourth narrative, which from today’s perspective is equally important, is about the significance
Kosovo was given in the formative years of the Serbian nation-state in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. The “spirit from Kosovo” became an ordinary way to speak about the Serbian national
character, and the imagery of Kosovo found its way into poems, paintings and national monuments
heralded by, among other works, Vuk Karadzic’s standardization of the epic of Kosovo Polje
(Judah 2009;
Mylonas 2003). It is during this period that the Kosovo narratives were given a structured role in
which various modern forms of the myth can be identified. These are examined in detail below.
The adaptation of the narratives as the basis for the Serbian nation-state also ensured the narratives’
influence on Serbia over the course of the following two centuries.
The Serbian Kosovo heroes from the narratives became the ideal Serbian warriors that were
depicted in epics, such as the influential epic “The Mountain Wreath” and used during the Serbian
uprisings in the nineteenth century and later during the Balkan Wars in 1912. During this period,
the formation of the Serbian nation-state and its eventual military conquest of Kosovo in 1912 were
interpreted as God’s intervention, freeing the Serbs from the Ottoman yoke. The day of the Kosovo
Polje, St. Vitus Day, became even more significant after a Serbian student shot the Habsburg Archduke
in Sarajevo on this day in 1914. This assassination precipitated the First World War and reinforced the
importance of St. Vitus Day for the Serbs (Judah 2009). Malcolm (1999, p. 140) describes how Serbian
writers and historians formulated this new Serbian national myth as one with four parts corresponding
to the story of Christ. Firstly, Christ is born as Serbia is founded in Kosovo. Secondly, Christ is crucified,
which corresponds to Serbia losing the battle of Kosovo. Christ is then dead and buried, like Serbia
in the great migration. And finally, Christ rises again, just as Serbia is resurrected as a new state
which conquers Kosovo in 1912. This is not a myth of a wall, but a myth of suffering, martyrdom,
and resurrection. Here, the Serbs and their nation are portrayed as holy warriors re-experiencing the
suffering and resurrection of Christ.
4. The Emergence of the Modern Kosovo Narratives
The modern adaptions and popularizations of the Kosovo themes in Serbia almost all take
their point of departure from Vuk Karadži´c (1787–1864) and Petar II Petrovi´c-Njegoš’s (1813–1851)
modernization of the Kosovo narratives. Before their works, the tradition was scattered and had
Religions 2019,10, 578 7 of 18
not yet been turned into a popular version which could be used in the construction of religious and
national identity. In the following section, Karadži´c’s and Njegoš’s works on Kosovo will be briefly
outlined, and the presence of an antemurale theme will be discussed.
Karadži´c was an influential Serbian folklorist and linguist who published four volumes of Serbian
National Songs between 1841 and 1862, which included several songs and poems on Kosovo. He had
already published a shorter version of the Kosovo epic in 1815, but the 1841 and 1862 versions contained
a selection of what is known as the Kosovo cycle of poems. Karadži´c himself lived during the time
of the two major Serbian revolts which eventually lead to the formation of a Serbian nation-state
(Wilson 1970).
Karadži´c, a trained romantic, saw the Serbian folk tradition as the core of the Serbian people
which had been transmitted to his time from the Middle Ages. These songs of the people should, in his
opinion, be the basis for a Serbian national literature, the existence of which could be used to justify
the claim for a Serbian state free of Ottoman control (Greenawalt 2001, p. 60).
In his Serbian National Songs, the most well known version of the Kosovo battle narratives is the
one mentioned above in which Lazar is preparing for his martyrdom. Greenawalt (2001, p. 54) argues
that Karadži´c’s version is first and foremost about “loyalty, loyalty to Lazar and to the ‘honorable cross’
even at the price of sure death”. Lazar does not become a martyr because he fights for Serbia against
a Muslim Ottoman army, but rather because he relinquishes his grasp on earthly power in order to
receive heavenly power. He assumes Christ’s ideal and is as such portrayed in the classical Eastern
Orthodox scheme for prince-martyrs. In this scheme, there exist three major groups of prince-martyrs,
with Lazar belonging to the type whom are killed by internal or external enemies but humbly accept
their fate like Christ. This type is called the suffering ruler.
Secondly, according to Greenawalt (2001), the poem is also about who shall rule Serbia and collect
taxes, and, finally, about which of the Serbian or Ottoman warriors fight valiantly on the battlefield.
Some prime examples of this are the various narratives about Miloš Obili´c and the way he succeeds in
killing the Ottoman sultan. The Ottoman sultan is not portrayed as an incarnation of evil, but rather is
portrayed positively because he fights and dies in battle. He honors the warrior code. In Karadži´c’s
versions of the Kosovo battle, “Kosovo emerges not as a loss to be avenged, not as a wound to be
licked, but as a pledge to be remembered” as Greenawalt puts it (2001, p. 54).
Njegoš’s Revitalization of the Kosovo Theme
Karadži´c’s standardization made the Kosovo theme popular, and the theme was used in a
series of plays, poems and paintings following his works. One of the earliest and most influential
adaptations was Petar II Petrovi´c-Njegoš’s (1813–1851) use of the Kosovo theme in his major epic The
Mountain Wreath (1847). Njegoš was both the ruler and Metropolitan of the semi-autonomous region of
Montenegro. He was educated by Sima Milutinovi´c, who was a close friend of Vuk Karadži´c’s and
also a major figure in Serbian Romanticism. Njegoš wrote a series of plays and poems, the most well
known of which is The Mountain Wreath. This epic is about Njegoš’s ancestor Danilo I, who also ruled
Montenegro as both a secular leader and a Metropolitan. In the epic, Danilo and his clansmen try
to preserve Montenegro as a Christian state, which eventually leads them to slaughter Montenegrin
Muslim converts during Christmas. This event is often called the Montenegrin Vesper and is allegedly
a historical event (Javarek 1952).
The major part of the epic is devoted to a discussion between Danilo and his clansmen in which
they debate and reflect on how and why Montenegro should remain Christian and not succumb to the
Muslim Ottoman sultan. The Kosovo theme plays a major role in this debate.
Religions 2019,10, 578 8 of 18
At the opening of the epic, Bishop Danilo sits alone and yearns for a day when Montenegro will
be freed from the Turks.
1
He calls out for a hero like Miloš Obili´c who can save the day. A fellow
Montenegrin replies: “The hope we had was buried forever /in one large tomb at the Kosovo Field”
(Mihailovi´c 2006, verse 54). Following his monologue, a longer section is devoted to an internal
debate amongst the Christian Montenegrins about what to do with “the Turks” in Montenegro. This is
followed by a lengthier debate between the Christian Montenegrins and their Muslim counterparts.
Danilo tries to win them back to their ancestral faith, but the Muslims reply that they must have been
seduced by Miloš’s legacy or are just plain drunk (verse 123). A Christian Montenegrin then states:
“But bravery and our Montenegrin name /have risen from Kosovo’s tomb again /above the
cloud into the knights’ kingdom, /where Obili´c holds sway over shadows.” (Mihailovi´c 2006,
verse 130)
The debate ends with no conclusion, and the two groups go their separate ways. Then follows a section
describing a gathering of the tribal chieftains of Montenegro, after which they go to sleep and all dream
of Miloš and the Kosovo Maidan, who convince them to take the final vow in church on Christmas
Day to fight the Turks. The final section of the epic contains a discussion between the bishop and an
abbot on Christmas Day, which ends with the news of the Montenegrin clansmen’s victory over the
Turks, or, to put it bluntly, their extermination of all Montenegrin Muslims. The poem concludes with
a Christmas Day service at which the abbot says:
“Listen, people, you all take offyour caps! /I want to hold a memorial service /to the souls
of our nation’s great heroes. /This day will be the most priceless to them. /Since Kosovo
there’s never been such day.” (Mihailovi´c 2006, verse 213)
It is perhaps no surprise that Njegoš’s epic is wildly debated and controversial today. There are two
major lines of interpretation; one sees the poem critically as a Serbian blueprint for the Christian ethnic
cleansing of Muslims, and the other as a much more complex poem about freedom and the primordial
fall of man. The critical side has gained momentum, especially after the Kosovo War in 1999, and
their main emphasis is that, in Njegoš’s epic, the Kosovo myth, national romanticism and Eastern
Orthodoxy blend into a dangerous national chauvinist cocktail (Judah 2009;Kühle and Laustsen 2006;
Anzulovi´c 1999). Greenawalt (2001, pp. 60–61) sharply notes, along those lines, that
“Njegoš lays out his dark vision of Serbian history. According to the scheme, Serbia’s
medieval leaders committed the mortal sin of discord and disloyalty. God has punished
them through Kosovo, a national fall from grace, which left spaces of identity [
. . .
] But just
as humanity can enjoy salvation through Jesus, so too do the Serbs have their national Christ:
Miloš Obili´c [ . . . ] the martyr of national purity, the genocidal Christ”
In such a reading of the epic, the fight between the Christian Montenegrins and Muslims becomes the
center of the narrative and mirrors the fight of Lazar and Obili´c against the Muslim Turks at Kosovo
Polje. This line of interpretation underlines how Miloš Obili´c and Kosovo are used to mark the point
in time when the Serbian nation fell under Ottoman and Islamic control. In such an interpretation,
the major theme is the everlasting battle between the good and loyal Christians and the evil Muslims,
in which the Serbs suffer the greatest toll at the frontline in Kosovo. The fight can only end when
the Muslims are forced out of Serbian lands. It can only end with a final crusade such as the one in
Njegoš’s poem.
Against such a reading, other scholars, such as Srdja Pavlovi´c (2001) and Zdenko Zlatar (2007),
underline that Njegoš’s epic should first and foremost be understood in its right context. It was written
1
Throughout the poem, and in Serbian-Montenegrin folk stories in general, ‘the Turks’ is a common name for the Ottomans
or for Slavs who have converted to the Islamic faith.
Religions 2019,10, 578 9 of 18
by a secular and religious leader facing severe pressure from the Ottoman Empire, which took the
form of local Slavic Muslims acting on behalf of the empire, and he wrote it during a period in which
there were several Serbian uprisings. Njegoš spent most of his intellectual life wondering about the
nature of evil, and his depiction of it was deeply theological and was not limited to a simple dualistic
conception of good and evil (Prvulovi´c 1954).
To interpret Njegoš’s epic into today’s world of nations and politics is to go far beyond his
experience and context, and it thus cannot be the only valid way of interpreting it. The poem is
open to a multitude of interpretations in which all regimes since Njegoš’s time have been able to find
justification for their claims to power—as Pavlovi´c puts it: “every new generation [
. . .
] appropriates
Njegoš’s work hoping to find enough quotations to validate their own views” (2001, p. 5).
Despite the differing interpretations of the epic, it is quite clear that the poem draws an image
of the Montenegrin tribes and their bishop’s battle which mirrors that of the battle of Kosovo.
The Montenegrins’ battle and the Kosovo battle both mirror a biblical and universal battle between
angels and devils. This battle is fought at the forefront in order to defend Christendom, a collective.
It is written, as the dedication in the opening of the epic testifies, to inspire the Slavic struggle for
freedom from the Ottomans, such as the Serbian uprisings in 1804–1813 and in 1815–1817. The focus of
the epic is the heroic and sacred fight of the Montenegrin tribes against overwhelming enemies and
the lure of the Muslim faith, which promises them peace and prosperity if they leave their ancestral
faith. For Njegoš, this theme is one that repeats itself in mankind’s history: first at the primordial
fall, then for Christ, then at Kosovo Polje for Prince Lazar and Obili´c, and finally for Danilo and the
Montenegrin chieftains. All are tempted and stand their ground (with the significant exception of
Adam). The bishop, Danilo, conjures this image in the poem when he addresses the Ottoman sultan:
“you insult God from the holy altar, /a mosque rises where the broken Cross lies. [
. . .
]
/Behold the work of that wicked monarch, /whom the devil teaches all kinds of things: /
"Montenegro I cannot win or tame, [
. . .
]/And so began the devil’s Messiah /to offer them
sweetmeats of his false faith. /May God strike you, loathsome degenerates, /why do we
need the Turks’ faith among us? /What will you do with your ancestors’ curse? /With what
will you appear before Miloš [Obili´c]” (Mihailovi´c 2006, verse 40–46)
However, it is not so obvious who this collective Christian “we” is and who is the collective that is being
defended. In the epic, the various characters often speak of the Serbian and/or Montenegrin collective,
and it is this “we” (often referred to as the plemena, a Serbian word for tribe) that is under threat when
Slavs convert to Islam. The protection does not seem to be for the whole of Christendom—at least
not the Roman Catholic parts—but rather exclusively for the tribe that could be considered as the
Serbians, whose national character is defined, in Njegoš’s perspective, only by their Orthodox faith.
The Montenegrins who converted to Islam are referred to in the poem by a derogative slur for Slavs that
convert to Islam, and it is them that are the target for the slaughter at the end of the epic. Danilo and
others talk of their opponents as disloyal brothers, not as foreigners from Anatolia—e.g., “A brother
will slaughter his own brother” (Mihailovi´c 2006, verse 47). This also applies to the Kosovo battle,
which is not framed in the poem as a battle to protect the West or Christendom, but rather one for
the defense of the Orthodox faith—a battle that made the Serbian “tribes” take the Kosovo pledge to
forever defend their ancestral home and church. In Njegoš’s work, the continual battle would only be
lost if the Serbian tribes failed to unite and fell into discord as they had done at Kosovo field in 1389.
2
2
The “chorus” (Kolo) of the epic spells out this theme in verses 60–68, which seems to repeat the same moral as Karadži´c’s
version of the Kosovo poem: “Our own leaders, miserable cowards, /thus became the traitors of our nation. /O that
accursed supper of Kosovo!” [verse 60]
. . .
“God is angry with the Serbian people. /A dragon with seven heads [verse 68]
has appeared and devoured the entire Serbian nation [verse 69].” Ibid. The word nation in these verses is a translation of
the Serbian word plemena, but Vasa D. Mihailovi´c has been criticized for this translation by Srdja Pavlovi´c (2001, pp. 6–7),
because a more standard translation would be “tribe” rather than nation. Pavlovi´c sees it as a way that nationalism is
inserted into the work.
Religions 2019,10, 578 10 of 18
The warriors of the Montenegrin clans might be called Christian holy warriors (a variant of crusaders)
imitating Christ in a just and holy war in the epic, but they seem to fight only for the Orthodox world.
5. The Serbian Orthodox Church on Kosovo
Njegoš’s and Karadži´c’s works became extremely influential in the Serbian Orthodox Church’s
revival of Kosovo narratives in the beginning of the twentieth century. The structure of a bulwark myth
can be found in these works, though that is not the case in the original Serbian sources which were
more preoccupied with the elevation of Lazar to sainthood. The influence of Njegoš’s and Karadži´c’s
works came about due to their use by Metropolitan Nikolai Velimirovi´c (1880–1956) who was one of the
SOC’s leading theologians in the period between the two world wars. Velimirovi´c’s views on Kosovo
were born out of Njegoš’s and Karadži´c’s works. They were then passed on from him to the leading
clergy of the present-day SOC, whom were taught his works by his pupils, such as Justin Popovi´c
(1894–1979), and so this line of thought became a cornerstone of the SOC after the fall of communism
(Buchenau 1999, pp. 11–15).
The prominence of the Kosovo narratives in contemporary Serbia is linked with the roles Kosovo
and the battle play within the SOC. It is from the church that essential parts of the Serbian national
identity were formed, and from there that the imagery and symbols of Kosovo were preserved and
kept alive (Judah 2009). As the influential scholar on the Balkans and religion Vjekolsva Perica (2005)
notes, the narratives of Kosovo as Serbia’s cradle and the mythologization of the battle of Kosovo Polje
were first popularized to the masses in the early 1900s to 1930s, as part of the SOC’s revival of the cult
of Lazar during the time of Velimirovi´c. From 1939 onwards (the 550th year anniversary of the battle),
14 June has been celebrated as St. Vitus Day, and, from then on, the church has marked the battle yearly.
Until then, the cult of Lazar was only confined to the monasteries in Ravinca, where his body was
kept. Perica (2005, p. 135) notes that the renewal of the cult around the Kosovo battle in 1939 was
not intended to be one based on an antemurale myth. It was instead renewed in order to highlight
the Serbian golden age, which was imagined to be under the Nemanji´c’s medieval rule and during
the formation of the medieval Serbian church under St. Sava. The Kosovo battle marked the end of
this era and the beginning of Ottoman rule, which finally ended with the liberation of Serbia in the
nineteenth century and the conquest of Kosovo in 1912. The Kosovo myth was, at that time, much
more the myth of a golden age that ended when the Serbian lords began to fight amongst each other,
and, divided, were conquered one by one by the Ottomans. The Serbians were not defenders on a
bulwark nor sacred warriors, but a people disunited and thus ready to fall. Lazar is glorified as the last
Serbian lord, who tried to unite the quarrelling lords, but was slain due to their betrayal. His sacrifice
did, however, save the SOC from destruction, and the church was preserved under Ottoman rule until
the Great Migration. This is the tale of a martyr-nation, not a crusader one.
The formation and spread of this particular interpretation of Serbian history and Kosovo after 1912
is well documented by Florian Bieber (2002), and it became the backdrop which the Serbian nationalists
used in the 1990s. As Jason A. Edwards (2015) concludes, the Miloševi´c regime’s use of the Kosovo
myth was not strictly following an antemurale scheme. The Kosovo narratives were also blended
with other types of myths and used in order to underline the suffering of the Serbs (martyrdom), the
heroism of their warriors, and their claim to Kosovo, because the Serbs were supposedly driven from
their cradle there (the antiquity myth). In this self-image of a suffering nation, Kosovo was presented
as a place that needed to be defended against the Muslim Albanian extermination of the Kosovo-Serbs.
In this way, Kosovo was portrayed as a bulwark the Serbs had pledged to defend, not for the West or
Christendom in general, but for the sake of the Serbian Orthodox nation. As Miloševi´c said in his most
famous speech at the 600
th
year anniversary of the battle at Kosovo field: if Kosovo were to fall, the
Serb nation would fall into chaos. Kosovo was a Serbian bulwark securing the order of the nation.
Again, this is the image of a suffering martyr-nation, but with substantial elements of the antemurale
myth, because the nation is called upon to defend order against chaos in a new battle (Perica 2005,
p. 132; Ramet 1995).
Religions 2019,10, 578 11 of 18
5.1. The Narratives of Kosovo in the 1980s
The backdrop of the Miloševi´c regime’s use of Kosovo dates back to the early 1980s, well before a
broad Serbian nationalist movement caught on. In 1982, the SOC voiced concern about Kosovo in an
appeal to the public signed by 21 clerics, amongst which were four future central metropolitans. This
became the first sign of the revitalization of the Kosovo narratives and Serbian nationalism in Socialist
Yugoslavia which had for so long kept them in check (Buchenau 1999). The appeal foreshadowed
what was about to come. It voiced concern over the slow migration of Serbs from Kosovo and the
subsequent Albanian demographic takeover that had been underway since the Second World War.
In the appeal, the Kosovo narratives play a vital role because Kosovo is stressed as the cradle of the
Serbian nation, and the battle in 1389 is argued to be a continual one still ongoing in Kosovo. The Serbs
of Kosovo are, according to the appeal, still fighting for their survival, holding on to “the last remains
of the cross and the last standing of the Serbian people” (Buchenau 1999, p. 17). The appeal calls for
the protection of the Serbs or, otherwise, a “slow, but well planned genocide” of the Serbs will take
place in Kosovo (Buchenau 1999, p. 18).
Following the appeal, a petition was delivered to the highest state institution in Yugoslavia in 1985,
signed by 2,016 Kosovo-Serbs, calling for a halt of “Albanian chauvinism” in Kosovo. The petition was
supported by a declaration of solidarity by 212 Serbian intellectuals and clerics, further highlighting
the question of Kosovo and calling for the protection of “the Serbian people and their history”
(Buchenau 1999, p. 21)
. These calls initiated a decade of writing on Kosovo, both by clerics and Serbian
intellectuals, all participating in stirring awake the Serbian national consciousness. The Kosovo
narratives began to take on a deeper religious and national tone, according to Klaus Buchenau’s (1999)
thorough investigation. A prime example of this is a 1989 text on Kosovo by Matija Be´ckovi´c in which
he writes:
“Kosovo is the costliest Serbian word. It is paid for with the blood of a whole people. For the
price of the blood of the people it is crowned at the throne of the Serbian language. Without
blood it couldn’t have been bought, and still be bought [
. . .
] Kosovo is the Serbian history
of the deluge: the Serbian New Testament” (Quoted in Buchenau 1999, p. 24)
In Be´ckovi´c’s words, Kosovo becomes a covenant of blood in which the Serbs have fallen and shall rise
again. Kosovo mirrors biblical history. Mankind fell from grace in the primordial fall and became
one with God again through Christ’s resurrection. The Serbs mirrored this when they lost at Kosovo
Polje, but they have the chance to redeem themselves again, if they honor the Kosovo covenant and
defend their church and ancestral home. The new fight is a defense of the Serbian control over Kosovo
against a Muslim Albanian takeover. This is a fight on the bulwark of the Serbian nation, combined
with a collective martyrdom myth and a myth of the ancestral home (the antiquitas). Be´ckovi´c’s and
other Serbian writers’ and clergy’s texts on Kosovo became the fuel which the Miloševi´c regime used
to mobilize the Serbs for the wars that followed in former Yugoslavia (Buchenau 1999). In this period,
the image of Kosovo was enlarged. Suddenly, the region of “Krajia” (the formerly Serbian populated
part of Croatia) was, every so often, refered to as the “Western Kosovo”. In such texts, Kosovo became
the image of the walls of the Great Serbian Nation that needed to be defended from all the foreign
threats: Catholics, Muslims, or whomever stood in the way (Buchenau 1999, pp. 26–27). War then
eventually came and inflicted heavy tolls on the Serbs, especially the ones on the “frontiers” of “Great
Serbia”; in Croatia (the region “Krajia” literally means border) and parts of Bosnia in 1991–1995, and
finally in Kosovo in 1999.
5.2. The Narratives of Kosovo around 1999
In the years leading up to the Kosovo War in 1999 and following it, the SOC lost faith in the
Miloševi´c regime’s policies in general and in Kosovo in particular. Several central clerics, amongst
them the metropolitan of a central metropolitanate in Kosovo, began to criticize the regime openly as
early as 1996, and sought other solutions that might ensure the Serbian presence in Kosovo and the
Religions 2019,10, 578 12 of 18
protection of the SOC’s sites there (Buchenau 1999, pp. 31–42). In the aftermath of the war, the SOC
produced two central books, in Serbian and English, calling for international protection of the sites and
of Serbs in Kosovo, which also articulated another changing conception of Kosovo. In the opening
statement of one of the books, known as the SOC’s Memorandum on Kosovo and Methohija (2003), the
synod of the SOC’s bishops writes:
“Kosovo and Methohija, the Holy Land of the Serbian people. What Jerusalem means to the
Jewish people, that is Kosovo for the Serbs. Moreover, Kosovo, like Jerusalem, is not just a matter
of geography or demography. It is a question of identity”
(SOC Serbian Orthodox Church, p. 9)
It goes on to say:
“It is in fact the centuries-old Serbian Kosovo Covenant [that is] the expression of our human
and Christian memory . . . ” (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church, p. 16)
In this memorandum, Kosovo is equated with Jerusalem and the fate of the Serbs is made equal to
that of the Jews; a tale of suffering and martyrdom. In the text, it is argued “the myth of Kosovo”
exists more in Western academic writings than in Serbian religiosity (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church,
pp. 15–17). The SOC explicitly states in the memorandum that the SOC itself is built on a Kosovo
covenant, which is founded on Kosovo and Methohija’s status as the ancestral home of ancient Serbia
and the historical center of the patriarchate. In the church’s opinion, this covenant has less to do
with nationalism and the “Kosovo myth”, but more to do with their concrete ownership of—in their
estimation—more than 1,300 churches and monasteries in the region, and the need to protect them.
According to Zorica Kuburi´c (2014), the Kosovo narratives in the SOC since 1999 present an image of
Kosovo as a holy land that needs to be protected. What is essential is not whom the land has to be
protected from, but rather that the Serbs in general have pledged to do so. As Kuburi´c (2014, p. 145)
puts it:
“The overlapping of the religious and national identities, as well as the connections between
the Church and the state, make it difficult to separate religious issues from political ones.
[. . . ]
The members of the Serbian Orthodox Church are determined to protect their graves,
to not betray the faith of their ancestors, and to not leave the country which is both their home
and their tomb. The power of the collective unconscious rises from the Kosovo pledge.”
In the SOC’s memorandum, it is not just the Turks or the Muslim Albanians that are viewed as a threat,
but “Anglican-American”—and NATO-backed interference as well. The SOC moves even further and
also draws attention to the suffering of the Serbs and the Orthodox community under communist
(1945–1989) and Nazi-fascist rule (1940–1945).
3
In this memorandum, Kosovo becomes a sacred city in
dire need of protection.
The SOC’s views on Kosovo are sharpened in the SOC book Crucified Kosovo (1999), which was a
draft for the memorandum. In this volume, two metropolitans, the SOC’s patriarch and others seek
to raise national and international awareness on the SOC’s threatened position in Kosovo. The book
was published only a few months after the war ended in 1999 and much of it is simply devoted to
highlighting the destruction and desecration of SOC property in Kosovo. It consists of the bishop’s
speeches during an event raising awareness of the destroyed churches. The contributions in the book
all call for help to restore the shrines and protect them from further destruction, but at the same time
criticize the foreign troops of the NATO force, the Albanians, and the Miloševi´c regime in Belgrade
for not doing enough or not doing the right thing. In this volume, one of the central metropolitans,
Amfilohije, speaks plainly about Kosovo. He argues that the experience in Kosovo is following the
pattern of the Kosovo battle. He says:
3Germany, Italy, and a Bulgarian and Albanian fascist-puppet state occupied Kosovo and Serbia in 1940–1945.
Religions 2019,10, 578 13 of 18
“We are fighting, [
. . .
] a new Kosovo battle, but this time we have no venerable Prince
and no Holy Cross. The venerable Knez has been replaced by irreligion. Irreligion, as
known to people from times immemorial, lacks in faith. The Holy Cross has been substituted
for a "target" [
. . .
]. It has also been replaced by an Albanian flag that is now, for the
first time since the Battle of Kosovo, flown from the house nearest to the Patriarchate.”
(SOC Serbian Orthodox Church)
Metropolitan Amfilohije thus puts the recent war in Kosovo into the context of Serbian history. The
Serbs and the SOC have lost because they lack a true leader fighting under a true banner. There is
no Prince Lazar to fight a Kosovo battle. Instead, the Serbs are left with “irreligion”. Amfilohije
thereby implies that Miloševi´c and his regime are seen as illegitimate. The illegitimacy of Miloševi´c is
contrasted to the legitimacy of Prince Lazar. In such a view, Miloševi´c sacrificed Kosovo for his own
safety, whereas Lazar sacrificed himself for the benefit of the Serbs. Amfilohije therefore argues that
the Serbian loss is another test in God’s vision of the world. Once more, the Serbs must suffer in hope
of a future heavenly kingdom. Amfilohije notes:
“Today’s verdict, being passed on the world, was written in a gospel before Christ’s Golgotha,
and its continuation, I have a feeling, coincides with what is going on in Kosovo and Metohija
at present.” (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church)
Here, he links the suffering of Christ together with the suffering of the SOC in Kosovo. It is not only
Kosovo that is being crucified, but also the SOC and the Serbs. The only solution is:
“to find new ways out of this misery, the Kosovo straits, depends on God and God’s intentions
but also on us all.” (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church)
It is only possible for God to stop the suffering of the SOC and the Serbs, if God and the SOC once more
can become one. In the memorandum (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church) and the book Kosovo crucified
(SOC Serbian Orthodox Church), it is argued a pattern of history is repeating itself. The suffering
repeats itself from the primordial fall, to Christ on Golgotha, to Kosovo Polje, and onto Kosovo in 1999.
It becomes in these new texts a continual tale of suffering and martyrdom, not one of resurrection and
victory. The patterns of resurrection and successful valiant defense in Njegoš’s and the SOC’s writings
on Kosovo in the early and late twentieth century seem to have been de-emphasized after the 1999 war.
The harsh reality of the Serbian failure in Kosovo seems to have reached the SOC (Buchenau 1999,
pp. 31–35).
Following the Kosovo War, the Miloševi´c regime was overthrown in Serbia in October 2000,
a foreign NATO force was deployed in Kosovo, and the Albanian-led Kosovo government unilaterally
declared Kosovo independent in 2008 (see Di Lellio 2006). These major geo-political changes have
reinforced the changed narrative of Kosovo that resurfaced in the SOC during the war in 1999.
The resurrection, blood and war metaphors are being replaced with a narrative of suffering and
martyrdom. Kosovo is no longer a place for a physical fight but is stressed in the SOC’s recent
publications as the “Old Serbia” that needs protection and safekeeping, a sacred city under threat that
needs spiritual sacrifice. This safekeeping is the reframed Kosovo “pledge”, and Kosovo is frequently
talked of as the Serbian Jerusalem. There seems to have been an Old Testament reframing of Kosovo
from 1999 onwards. One of the newest examples of this is a series of open letters, appeals and messages
from the SOC from 2018, when the Kosovo-Albanian and Serbian governments held, under EU auspice,
renewed talks on the future of Kosovo. A major theme in these talks was the possibility of exchanging
municipalities between Serbia and Kosovo in order to let Serbian-dominated provinces become part of
Serbia proper as a sort of compensation to Serbia for its acknowledgement of Kosovo’s independence.
During these peace talks, the SOC fiercely opposed the exchange and the acknowledgement of Kosovo’s
independent status, and the Kosovo narratives were used as a point of departure into why the SOC
would not accept the exchange. In a message from the SOC’s bishop assembly on Kosovo on 13 May
Religions 2019,10, 578 14 of 18
2018, it is stressed from the start that Kosovo is the founding place of the SOC and that it is where a
significant part of its churches and monasteries are. Kosovo is an “inalienable central part of Serbia”
(SOC Serbian Orthodox Church). According to the bishops:
“The Kosovo Testament signifies the expression of the central message of the New Testament.
Concretely, experienced in the historical experience of the Serbian people [...] it is neither a
question of national ideology or mythology [... but a] cornerstone of its identity, history and
statehood.” (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church )
They go on to say:
“In [
. . .
] division, the people would automatically be left to the mercy and mercilessness
of the regime of the so-called state of Kosovo; exposed to a pogrom similar to that
of March 2004 or, under pressure and quiet terror, would be forced into an exodus.”
(SOC Serbian Orthodox Church)
In November 2018, the assembly of all the SOC’s bishops issued a second statement in which
they once again voiced concern over Kosovo. The bishops stated that they supported the SOC in
Kosovo and the Serbs “to persist and remain in Kosovo and Metohija, the heartland of the Serbian
Orthodox spirituality and our identity” (SOC Serbian Orthodox Church). The bishops warned again
that Kosovo is a “question of the survival of our clergy, monastics, and the faithful people, and,
especially, our ancient holy sites without which we never would have become what we are today”
(SOC Serbian Orthodox Church)
. What becomes clear in these statements released by the SOC during
the peace talks of 2018, is that the Kosovo narratives of the battle have been de-emphasized. There
is no talk of a wall, a fight for Western civilization, or even any battle at all, neither physical nor
spiritual. Instead, Kosovo is emphasized as the SOC’s and the Serb’s homeland, and a place for their
holy shrines. A place they might be forced away from in another “exodus”. The Kosovo narratives
of today could therefore rather be labeled as a mixture of the antiquity myth and that of martyrdom.
The blend corresponds to that of the Jewish suffering in the Old Testament, and the SOC frequently
alludes to this theme through the use of “exodus”, “pogrom”, “Jerusalem” and “ancient shrines”. The
suffering of the Serbs in Kosovo is talked of in a manner similar to that of the Old Testament’s world of
suffering, joined by a few references to the death and suffering of Christ. It does, however, still contain
an idea of entitlement to the soil and of salvation in which the basic core of the antemurale myth is
preserved. The brute force and open spilling of blood has ended in this image, but a slow, silent and
even more threating Exodus of the Serbs is beginning to unfold.
6. Concluding Discussion of the Antemurale Myth Today
First of all, there is a rich supply of evidence that in the 1980s and 1990s, a sort of antemurale myth
was used by the Miloševi´c regime during the Serbian mobilization for the wars to come during the
dissolution of Yugoslavia. This was not an image of holy victorious crusaders, but rather one of a
suffering nation remembering its pledge to defend its home from chaos. The theme of antemurale seems
to have been reshaped by some members of the SOC’s clergy in the early 1980s as part of the general trend
in the reawakening of the Serbian nationalist movement throughout Serbian society. In this image, the
Serbs were fighting for the Christian faith mainly against the Muslim—and imagined “Turkish”—threat
in Kosovo and Bosnia. However, the core narrative of this awakening was not that of a battle between
the West and the East nor between Christendom and Islam. The narrative was rather that of Kosovo
being the cradle of the Serbs, which they had been driven from forcefully in a series of “exoduses”. In
the perhaps most central document of the Serbian nationalist reawakening, The Memorandum of the
Serbian Academy of Sciences on Kosovo and Arts
(Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts 1986)
, Kosovo is
talked of as a “cradle”, and a Serbian “exodus” is mentioned, but there is no reference to the battle in
1389. However, the Serbs were called upon to fight for Kosovo because it was their homeland and
their border with the Albanians, but that was in the same manner as they were called upon to fight
Religions 2019,10, 578 15 of 18
in Krajina in Croatia (Western Kosovo). Elements of the antemurale were present, but it was not an
image of the Serbs as defenders of another whole (Christendom or the West); they only fought for the
protection of Serbia and the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church.
The elements of war, a wall, and valiant warriors at Kosovo Polje were further de-emphasized by
the SOC in the years leading to the 1999 Kosovo War and since. The narrative of Kosovo was narrowed
to a biblical one of suffering, martyrdom, and divine right to a sacred homeland—a Jerusalem. The
myth of old Serbia (the antiquity myth) has been more important for the SOC in the past twenty years.
The two major seminal works expressing the Kosovo narratives from the nineteenth century,
Karadži´c’s and Njegoš’s, did, however, contain elements of an antemurale myth. These elements were
reactivated during the years of the Miloševi´c regime. It is crucial to note, however, that these structures
of the antemurale myth do not seem to have been present, or at least were not of interest for the early
Serbian sources, who, unlike the Catholic sources, were more concerned with the elevation of Lazar
to sainthood. In Karadži´c’s work, the narrative was mostly that of martyrdom and an image of the
valiant Serbian knights fighting for freedom. This fight took on the biblical form and scheme of an
imitation of Christ, and, in doing so, created a dramatic dualism between the good loyal Serbian knights
protecting their people, and the opposing disloyal Serbian lords. It thus took the form of a general
Eastern European image of the valiant warriors on the wall. The Muslim Turks do not appear as the
main evil characters of the epic, but rather as God’s tool to punish the Serbs. Despite this, the Kosovo
battle contains, in Karadži´c’s version, metaphors of blood, sacrifice, Christendom versus Islam, and
Serbian knights elected by God. All the elements that could be used to form the antemurale myth of
Kosovo were used again by the Miloševi´c regime.
The same dramatic dualism also appears in Njegoš’s poem as the epic casts the loyal Christian
Montenegrin tribes against the disloyal Muslim Montenegrin converts. Kosovo becomes here, for
one of the first time, a metaphor for a pledge to protect the Serbian ancestral faith. Since Njegoš’s
poem operates with a theological mirroring of the earthly realm with that of the heavenly, so that the
Montenegrin Christians’ fight mirrors the Angels’ fight against the Devils, it creates a dualism between
Christendom and Islam. In this narrative, which Kolstø (2005) describes as a “martyrological version
[of] the antemurale myth [which] acquires messianic overtones”, the Montenegrin people are cast in the
role of what Greenawalt (2001) calls “the martyr of national purity, the genocidal Christ”. This is a
reading that takes Njegoš’s epic too far in my opinion, but a reading some Serbian nationalists might
agree with. It does point to a potential Serbian national self-image based on Njegoš’s epic, in which the
Serbs defend a Christian wall against the Muslims. This potential was exploited to its fullest extent by
the Miloševi´c regime and the Bosnian-Serbian leader during the war in Bosnia.4
A striking conclusion is that the Serbian antemurale theme in the various narratives on Kosovo
rarely frames the Serbs as defenders of anything other than Serbia itself. It is only in Njegoš’s epic
that the Universal Christian world enters the cosmology. Kosovo is often just the border of Serbia,
just like Krajina in Croatia is. It is a bulwark for the Serbian nation and for Orthodoxy, but not for
the whole of Western Christian civilization. There seem to be sound geo-polititcal, historical, and
theological reasons for this. First, there is a deep theological divide between the Eastern Christian
Serbs and the Catholic West from the medieval period onwards. This divide is further fueled by the
threat the Catholic Church posed to the Orthodox Christians during the aggressive Catholic missions
in the period of the Venetian control of Dalmatia and the Montenegrin littoral, as well as during the
Fourth Crusade that pillaged the spiritual heart of Orthodoxy, Byzantium (1453). This divide became
even more apparent when Serbian lords aided the Ottomans against the Catholics in both the failed
Crusade of Varna (1443–1444) and the Second Battle of Kosovo (1448) (Malcolm 1999). During these
two crusades, it seems that the Serbian lords preferred Ottoman rather than Catholic suzerainty.
4
See, for example, the Bosnian Serbian president during the Bosnian wars Radovan Karadži´c’s text (Karadži´c 1995), ”Da li je
ovo bio rat?” [Eng.: Was this a true war?]
Religions 2019,10, 578 16 of 18
This divide was widened in the founding days of the Serbian nation-state in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. There was widespread skepticism in the Orthodox Church of the liberal
Catholic and Protestant West. Velimirovi´c and other leading conservative theologians saw the West
as a decadent and schismatic form of Christendom (Buchenau 1999). This point of view was passed
on to his pupils, and to the Orthodox theologians of today, further fueled by the general Eastern
Orthodox skepticism of the West. In the eyes of many Serbian Orthodox, there is only one true form of
Christianity, and it does not include the West.
Secondly, the Serbian nation-state was, from its foundation, under pressure from the West in the
form of the Habsburg Austrian-Hungarian Empire. In the two World Wars, Serbia was attacked by
the West, by either Austrian, German, or Italian forces. The massive extermination of Orthodox Serbs
during the Croat Ustashe-fascist regime during the Second World War is perhaps an even stronger
myth and fear in Serbian society, which perhaps played an even more crucial role in the wars in the
1990s (Perica 2005). The Balkan wars of the 1990s followed the same pattern, reinforcing anti-Western
sentiment. The USA aided the Bosnians and Croats and intervened in Kosovo against the Serbs.
Geo-politically and historically speaking, the Serbs have often experienced violence both at the hands
of Western as well as Turkish armies. Therefore, it makes sense that the collective “we” in the Kosovo
imagery, which needs to be defended by the Serbs, rarely includes the West or the Catholic Christians.
When the “we” is enlarged, it more often includes Russia, Serbia’s longtime ally, and a country that
shares with it both the Orthodox faith and the skepticism of the West.
However, there has been a change of tack in the SOC’s publications and actions since the period
leading up to the 1999 Kosovo War until the present day. Remarkably, most of their texts are published
in both Serbian and English, and the SOC is making a substantial effort to distance itself from the
Miloševi´c regime during the 1997–1999 period. These texts and addresses are directed to a broader
global audience, and the battle as well as the antemurale themes are not emphasized. Instead, the
suffering (martyrdom) and the historical heritage (antiquity) of the Serbs are put to the forefront. They
are appealing to Western Christian civilization to remember their common history with the Orthodox
Serbs, and perhaps aid them accordingly.
Funding:
This research was partly funded by C.E.Gads Foundation, whose travel grant (2017) was used for field
studies and meetings with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro in 2018.
Acknowledgments:
The author would like to acknowledge the contribution of Ass. Professor Carsten Selch, who
suggested the overall theme and gave valuable input along the working process of this paper. I the same manner,
Tarek Salhany are acknowledged for his valuable linguistic and grammatical input, as well as his proofreading of
this paper.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
References
Amfilohije, Metropolitan. 1999. Shame and Blame in the Face of Christian Europe in Crucified Kosovo, Belgrade.
Available online: http://www.kosovo.net/crucified/sp-amfilohije.html (accessed on 22 August 2019).
Antic, Ana. 2005. The Evolution of the boundary: Defining historical myths in Serbian academic and public
opinions in the 1990s. In Myths and Boundaries in South-eastern Europe. Edited by Pål Kolstø. London: Hurst
& Co., pp. 191–93.
Anzulovi´c, Branimir. 1999. Heavenly Serbia—From Myth to Genocide. London: Hurst & Company.
Bieber, Florian. 2002. Nationalist Mobilization and Stories of Serb Suffering: The Kosovo myth from 600th
anniversary to the present. Rethinking History 6: 95–110. [CrossRef]
Buchenau, Klaus. 1999. Verspäete Ernüchterung—Die Serbische Orthodoxe Kirche im Kosovokonflikt 1960–1999.
In Die Serbische Orthodoxe Kirche im Kosovokonflikt. Krieg auf dem Balkan. Edited by Klaus Buchenau and
Stefan Troebst. Berlin: Arbeitspapiere des Osteuropa Instituts, Frie Universität Berlin, no. 2.
Di Lellio, Anna, ed. 2006. The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence. London: Anthem Press.
Edwards, Jason A. 2015. Bringing in Earthly Redemption: Slobodan Milosevic and the National Myth of Kosovo.
Advances in the History of Rhetoric 18: 87–204. [CrossRef]
Religions 2019,10, 578 17 of 18
Goldstein, Iva. 2005. The Boundary of the Drina: The meaning of and development of a mythologeme. In Myths
and Boundaries in South-eastern Europe. Edited by Pål Kolstø. London: Hurst & Co., pp. 77–105.
Greenawalt, Alexander. 2001. Kosovo Myths: Karadži´c, Njegoš, and the Transformation of Serb Memory. Spaces of
Identity 3: 51. [CrossRef]
Housley, Norman. 2003. Religious Warfare in Europe, 1400–1536. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. The Clash of Civilizations? Foreign Affairs 72: 22–49. [CrossRef]
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Javarek, Vera. 1952. Petar Petrovi´c Njegoš (1813-51). The Slavonic and East European Review 30: 514–30.
Judah, Tim. 2009. The Serbs. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Karadži´c, Radovan. 1995. Da li je ovo bio rat? [Ewar] in Jagnje Božije i Zvijer iz bezdana [The lamb of god and the
beast from the abyss], Cetinje, Svetigora. Available online: https://www.rastko.rs/filosofija/jagnje/index.html
(accessed on 22 August 2019).
Kolstø, Pål. 2005. Introduction: Assesing the Role of Historical Myths in Modern Society. In Myths and Boundaries
in South-eastern Europe. Edited by Pål Kolstø. London: Hurst & Co., pp. 1–34.
Kuburi´c, Zorica. 2014. Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija: Between Past and Future. Balkan
Journal of Philosophy 2: 137–46. [CrossRef]
Kühle, Lene, and Carsten Bagge Laustsen. 2006. The Kosov Myth: Nationalism and revenge. In Kosovo between
War and Peace—Nationalism, Peacebuilding and International Trusteeship. Edited by Tonny Brems Knudsen and
Carsten Bagge Laustsen. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 37–56.
Malcolm, Noel. 1999. Kosovo—A Short History. London: Macmillan Press.
Matthias, John, and Vladeta Vuckovic, trans. 1989, The Battle of Kosovo—Serbian Epic Poems. Athens: Swallow
Press/Ohio University Press, Available online: http://www.kosovo.net/history/battle_of_kosovo.html
(accessed on 22 August 2019).
Mihailovi´c, Vasa D., trans. 2006. The Mountain Wreath. Available online: https://web.archive.org/web/
20090226210356/http://www.rastko.org.rs/knjizevnost/njegos/njegos-mountain_wreath.html22.08.2019
(accessed on 22 August 2019).
Mylonas, Christos. 2003. Serbian Orthodox Fundamentals—the Quest for an Eternal Identity. New York and Budapest:
Central European University Press.
Pavlovi´c, Srdja. 2001. The Mountain Wreath: Poetry or a Blueprint for the Final Solution? Spaces of Identity 1: 4.
Pavlovich, Paul. 1989. The History of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Ontario: Serbian Heritage Books.
Perica, Vjekoslav. 2005. The Sanctification of Enmity: Churches and the construction of founding myths of Serbia
and Croatia. In Myths and Boundaries in South-eastern Europe. Edited by Pål Kolstø. London: Hurst & Co.,
pp. 137–50.
Prvulovi´c, Žika Rad. 1954. Njegoš on the Origin of Evil. The Slavonic and East European Review 32: 406–23.
Ramet, Sabrina P. 1995. The Serbian Church and the Serbian Nation. In Beyond Yoguslavia: Politics, Economics and
Culture in a Shattered Community. Edited by Sabina P. Ramet and Ljubisa S. Adamovich. Boulder: Westview
Press, pp. 101–22.
Ramet, Sabrina P. 2005. Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia
and Kosovo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. 1986. The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and
Arts on Kosovo. Available online: http://www.trepca.net/english/2006/serbian_memorandum_1986/serbia_
memorandum_1986.html (accessed on 22 August 2019).
SOC (Serbian Orthodox Church). 1999. Crucified Kosovo. Belgrade. Available online: http://www.kosovo.net/
crucified/sp-amfilohije.html (accessed on 22 August 2019).
SOC (Serbian Orthodox Church). 2003. Memorandum on Kosovo and Metohija—The Holy Assembly of Bishops of The
Serbian Orthodox Church. Belgrade: The Holy Synod of Bishops of The Serbian Orthodox Church.
SOC (Serbian Orthodox Church). 2018a. Message of the Holy Assembly of Bishops on Kosovo and Metohija.
May 13. Available online: http://www.spc.rs/eng/message_holy_assembly_bishops_kosovo_and_metohija
(accessed on 22 August 2019).
SOC (Serbian Orthodox Church). 2018b. Communique of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox
Church on Kosovo and Metohija. November 8. Available online: http://www.spc.rs/eng/communique_holy_
assembly_bishops_serbian_orthodox_church_kosovo_and_metohija (accessed on 22 August 2019).
Religions 2019,10, 578 18 of 18
Wilson, Duncan. 1970. The Life and Times of Vuk Stefanovi´c Karadži´c 1787–1864: Literacy, Literature, and National
Independence in Serbia. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Zanic, Ivo. 2005. The symbolic identity of Croatia in the Triangle Crossroads-Bulwark-Bridge. In Myths and
Boundaries in South-eastern Europe. Edited by Pål Kolstø. London: Hurst & Co., pp. 35–76.
Zlatar, Zdenko. 2007. The Poetics of Slavdom. Vol. II. Franfurt and Main: Peter Lang.
©
2019 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access
article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution
(CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
