Anti-Serb sentiment

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Anti-Serb sentiment is a generic term used to describe a sentiment of hostility or hatred towards Serbs, Serbia, Serbian language, or Serbian Orthodoxy (Serbian Orthodox Christians). The term Serbophobia has been used to describe the said sentiment, but the description has been controversial. According to those who use the term, Serbophobia can range from individual hatred to institutionalised persecution. Its opposite is Serbophilia.

Serbophobia is often claimed to be particularly widespread among Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Slovenes, Bulgarians and Kosovo's Albanians as a reaction to alienation of Serbs during the wars with those ethnic groups.^[1][2]

Escalation of anti-Serb sentiment has sometimes resulted in persecution of Serbs on religious, political and ethnic grounds.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Islamization in the Ottoman Empire 1.2 Catholicization in the Military Frontier 1.3 Balkan Wars 1.4 Albanization 1.5 Early 20th century in Croatia 1.6 Sarajevo assassination 1.7 World War II 1.8 1980s 1.9 1990s 1.10 2000s 2 Srbe na vrbe 3 Criticism 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links 7.1 Use in various languages

History

Islamization in the Ottoman Empire

As Christians, the Serbs were regarded as a "protected people" under Ottoman law, but were however referred to as Giaour (Serbian: Kaurin, English: Infidel). Many converted to Islam in viyalets where Islam was more powerful, notably in the Sandzak and Bosnia region, others converted in order to be more successful in the Ottoman Empire society and many were forced as part of Turkification or Islamisation and avoided persecution. The Janissaries (Serbian: Janjičari) were infantry units that served directly under the Sultan in the households and bodyguarding the higher people within the Ottoman Turkish government, they were composed of Islamicized Christian boys taken from the conquered countries through the Devşirme (Blood tribute) system, trained and schooled to serve the Ottoman Empire. Serbs, together with Greeks and Bulgarians were favored by the Sultans.

Catholicization in the Military Frontier

Serbs in the Roman Catholic Croatian Military Frontier were out of the jurisdiction of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć and in 1611, after demands from the community, the Pope establishes the Eparchy of Marča (Vratanija) with seat at the Serbian-built Marča Monastery and instates a Byzantine vicar as bishop sub-ordinate to the Roman Catholic bishop of Zagreb, working to bring Serbian Orthodox Christians into communion with Rome which caused a power-struggle between the Catholics and the Serbs over the region. In 1695 the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Lika-Krbava and Zrinopolje was established by metropolitan Atanasije Ljubojevic and was certified by Emperor Josef I in 1707. In 1735, the Serbian Orthodox people protested in the Marča Monastery and became part of the Serbian Orthodox Church until 1753 when the Pope restored the Roman Catholic clergy. On June 17, 1777 the Eparchy of Križevci was permanently established by Pope Pius VI with a see at Križevci, near Zagreb, thus forming the Croatian Greek Catholic Church which would after World War I include other people; Rusyns and Ukrainians of Yugoslavia.^[3][3][4][4]

Balkan Wars

Serbian socialist Dimitrije Tucović believes that the hatred of Serbia by the Albanian people was caused by the initial policy of the 1912 Serbian government that had planned to divide all Albanian inhabited territory between itself and Greece.^[5] Tucović stated that Serbian occupation of Albania in the Balkan wars pushed the Albanian people to feel hatred of everything Serbian.^[6]

“	Unlimited enmity of the Albanian people against Serbia is the foremost real result of the Albanian policies of the Serbian government.[7]	”
	— Dimitrije Tucović

He concluded that Serbia wanted the sea and the colony, but left without getting the sea, and from the colony created a blood enemy.^[8]

Albanization

The term Arnauti or Arnautaši was coined by ethnographers for "Albanized Serbs"; Serbs who had converted to Islam and went through a process of Albanisation.^[9][10]

At the end of the 19th century, writer Branislav Nušić recorded that the Serb poturice (converts to Islam) of Orahovac began talking Albanian and marrying Albanian women.^[10]

When Dr Jovan Hadži Vasiljević (l. 1866-1948) visited Orahovac in World War I, he could not distinguish Orthodox from Islamicized and Albanized Serbs.^[10] They spoke Serbian, wore the same costumes, but claimed Serbian, Albanian or Turk ethnicity.^[10] The Albanian starosedeoci (old urban families) were Slavophone; they did not speak Albanian but a Slavic dialect (naš govor, Our language) at home.^[10]

In the 1921 census the majority of Muslim Albanians of Orahovac were registered under the category "Serbs and Croats".^[10]

Mark Krasniqi, the Kosovo Albanian ethnographer, recalled in 1957: "During my own research, some of them told me that their tongue is similar to Macedonian rather than Serbian (it is clear that they want to dissociate themselves from everything Serbian). It is likely they are the last remnants of what is now known in Serbian sources as Arnautaši, Islamicised and half-way Albanianised Slavs."^[10]

Early 20th century in Croatia

The term was used in the literary and cultural circles since before World War I. Croatian writers Antun Gustav Matoš and Miroslav Krleža had casually described some political and cultural figures as "Serbophobes" (Krleža in the four volume "Talks with Miroslav Krleža", 1985., edited by Enes Čengić), meaning that they perceived an anti-Serbian animus in a person's behavior.

Sarajevo assassination

Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in 1914 led to angry Croats and Muslims in Sarajevo to engage in violent anti-Serb demonstrations during the evening of June 28 and much of the day on June 29, and this led to a deep division along ethnic lines. The crowd directed its anger principally at Serb shops and at residences of prominent Serbs. The mob attacked the cluster of structures near the New Serbian Orthodox Church, threw stones at the metropolitan's residence and sacked the Serbian Orthodox School. Other smaller groups stoned the building that housed the Serb cultural society Prosvjeta, sacked a Serb bank, and trashed the officies of the newspaper Srpska riječ. They singled out shops of Serb merchants including the family business of the assassin Neđeljko Čubrinović, and attacked Serb residences. Two Serbs were killed that day by crowd violence.^[11] That night there were anti-Serb riots also in other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.^[12] In the aftermath of Sarajevo assassination anti-Serb sentiment ran high throughout the Habsburg Empire.^[13]

Taking advantage of an international wave of revulsion against this act of "Serbian nationalist terrorism", Austro-Hungary gave Serbia an ultimatum which led to World War I.^[14]

An example of Serbophobia is the jingle "Alle Serben müssen sterben" (All Serbs Must Die), which was popular in Vienna in 1914^[15] (also occurring as: Serbien muß sterbien).

World War II

Miloš Acin-Kosta in his book Draža Mihailović i Ravna Gora (Draža Mihailović and Ravna Gora) dedicates a section to Serbophobia during World War II.

Prior to and during the extermination campaign on the Serbs during World War II, mass propaganda was initiated by the Germans and their Croatian collaborators as to dehumanize and justify the slaughter just as had been done to the Jews previously.^[16][17]

During World War II the persecution of Serbs manifested itself in:

• World War II persecution of Serbs
• Jasenovac concentration camp

Serbs were persecuted by Croatian authorities during World War II by the Croatian Ustaša along with Jews and Roma in the Independent State of Croatia.^[18] The number of murdered Serbs is estimated in a wide range, from at least 300 000 to 800 000. At least 80 000 people, of which the majority were Serbs, died in the Jasenovac concentration camp between 1941 and 1945.

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Serbs were Catholicized by the Fascist Croatian Ustaše regime.

1980s

In the 1986 draft Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Serbophobia is mentioned.^[19]

1990s

1991 Dalmatian anti-Serb riots

Cadik Danon, the then-Chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia et al. in an open letter^[20] to the American Jewish Committee in 1995, during the bombing of Republika Srpska by NATO during Bosnian War, wrote of a background of "... unrestrained anti-Serbian propaganda, raging during all this war, following the Nazi model, but much more efficient means and in a much more sophisticated and more expensive way.... Even American Jews were not able to withstand this propagandistic poison,... they did not recognize the Nazis and racist nature of the Serbophobic dogma. They did not identify Serbophobia as a twin sister of anti-semitism...."

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia submitted to the International Court of Justice^[21] in 1997 claims that acts of genocide against Serbs had been incited by anti-Serb sentiment and rhetoric communicated through all forms of the media.

• Croatian "Patriotic Song" which read as follows: Dear mother, I'm going to plant willows, We'll hang Serbs from them. Dear mother, I'm going to sharpen knives, We'll soon fill pits again.^[21]
• The publishing in a newspaper of, "Each Muslim must name a Serb and take oath to kill him."^[21]
• The radio broadcast of "public calls for the execution of Serbs".^[21]

Persecution may refer to death, beating, torture, confiscation or destruction of property, or destruction or desecration of monasteries and churches in Goražde, Bosnia and Herzegovina,^[22] and in Kosovo.^[23]

Persecution of Serbs by Kosovo Albanian extremists occurred during and after the 1998-1999 Kosovo War.^{[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]}

Serbophobia has been claimed to occur in many Hollywood films including: Behind Enemy Lines and Harrison's Flowers, where the Serbs are exaggeratedly portrayed as rapists and terrorists.^[33]

Current United States Vice President Joe Biden is on record as speaking in an anti-Serb manner. During the 1999 NATO attack on Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia, he appeared on Meet the Press (9 May 1999) and called for "a Japanese-German style occupation of that country, while his son publicly praised the Albanians' resolve in expelling the "degenerate thugs" from Kosovo".^{[34][35][36][37]} Due to these statements, during his official visit to Belgrade in 2009 he was met with heavy criticism branding him racist from media and public figures alike as well as numerous protests against his visit.^[38][39][40]

• Systematic and organized Organ theft in Kosovo, more than 300 Serbs missing
• Grdelica train bombing
• Lužane bus bombing
• Podujevo bus bombing
• Panda Bar Massacre
• Gnjilane Group, a group within the KLA that kidnapped, raped and murdered ethnic Serb civilians.^[41]
• Lapušnik prison camp

2000s

Some Kosovo Albanians publicly use an ethnic slur to refer to the Serb minority in Kosovo.^[42]

• Current Croatian mayor of the city of Split, Željko Kerum makes a public media outburst claiming “There has never been, nor will there ever be a Serb in my family, that’s how I was raised” to which the Serbian government responded by condemning the statement as racist and sending a letter of protest to the Croatian embassy.^[43][44]
• In September 2009, a doctor refused to treat a stroke patient because he was a Serb. Upon their arrival the doctor started verbally abusing them and almost physically attacked them at one point. He called them "Chetniks" and "vermin from Vrhovljani", threatening to "take Chetnik badges from both their heads". Once treated at another hospital the patient was diagnosed as having suffered a stroke. The doctors only reaction was that he "doesn't care about journalists". The Serb patient who was forced to flee Croatia during the war had just recently returned, but discrimination and human rights violations as evidenced continue in the present which is a major factor keeping the remaining refugees from returning.^[45][46]
• In Melbourne, Australia a restaurant with owners of Croatian descent held a celebration to honor World War II Croatian Ustasha leader Ante Pavelić, whose genocidal policies led to the deaths of an estimated 600,000-1,000,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. The event was an "outrageous affront" both to his victims and to any persons of morality and conscience who oppose racism and genocide, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's chief Nazi-hunter and Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff stated. Zuroff also noted this was not the first time that Croatian émigrés in Australia had openly defended Croatian Nazi war criminals.^[47]
• On 6 October 2009, the Croatian extreme right-wing NGO (The Croatian Cultural Movement) announced plans to erect a monument in honor of former Croatian Ustasha president Ante Pavelić in Zagreb adjacent to the capitals centre square. The Israeli director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center slammed the proposed monument, saying it "constitutes an outrageous falsification of Croatia's World War II history and is an insult to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians - Serbs, Jews, Roma. He went on to say that the decision to erect the monument reflected "historical revisionism of the worst sort imaginable and a whitewash of the horrific crimes committed by the NDH-Independent State of Croatia as state policy. It is simply inconceivable that a country on the verge of entry to the European Union would allow such a monument to be erected in its capital city or anywhere else on its territory."^[48][49]
• On the 12th of October 2009, a European Under 21 Championship qualifying match was played in Varaždin, Croatia where Serbia was the visiting side. Several hours prior to the match, Serbian youth squad manager Milovan Đorić was assaulted by a group of "some seven or eight hooligans" while walking around town in his Serbian squad tracksuit. Đorić was subsequently treated for minor facial injuries. The match itself was also marred by racist abuse directed towards the Serbian players from the crowd such as with offensive chants such as "Ubij Srbina" (Kill Serbs) and "Srbe na vrbe" (Hang Serbs from the willow trees; see above) being heard throughout and the subsequent burning of the Serbian flag.^[50][51]
• In October 2009, Croatia's state TV HRT Director Vanja Sutlić insulted one of his own journalists because she is married to a Serb. Witness reports state that "rough insults" were directed at Ivana Dragičević-Veličković including being called a "chetnik whore". Lela Knežević, an editor with HRT, added that this was not the first similar outburst Sutlić was involved in. After attending a journalist seminar in Belgrade, Sutlić informed her that all business trip expenses were to be cancelled and may now only be funded through personal means due to his ethnically motivated objection to the business trip which he explained by stating, 'what business do you have being guests on Serb channel B92'.^[52][53][54]
• Nationalist Croats have been known to shout the slogan "Kill the Serb" frequently during public events, most notable during Marko Perković Thompson's concerts,^[55][56] but also frequently during sporting events.^[57] During the summer of 2009, as more Serb tourists began arriving to the coastal resorts in Croatia, several of them have seen their cars being vandalized.^[58]

• 2003 Goraždevac murders
• 2004 unrest in Kosovo

Srbe na vrbe

The slogan Srbe na vrbe!, meaning "Hang Serbs from the willow trees!" is hate speech calling for the extermination of Serbs. The slogan originates from a poem of the Slovene politician Marko Natlačen published in 1914, at the beginning of the war of Austria-Hungary against Serbia.^[59][60]

It was popularized before World War II by Mile Budak, the chief architect of the Ustaše ideology against Serbs, and during World War II there were mass hangings of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, as part of the Holocaust and the Ustaše's persecution of the Serbs.

In present-day Croatia, Croatian neo-Nazis, extreme nationalists and people who oppose return of Serbian refugees often use the slogan. Graffiti with the phrase is common, and has been observed by the press when it was painted on a church in 2004,^[61] 2006,^[62] on another church in 2008,^[63] and in 2010, when a banner with the slogan appeared in the midst of the tourist season at the entrance to Split, a major tourist hub in Croatia, during a Davis Cup tennis match between the two countries. It was removed by the police within hours and otherwise ignored.^[64] The police later apprehended the author of the banner and charged him with a felony.^[65][66]

Criticism

Critics associate the use of the term Serbophobia with the politics of Serbian nationalist victimization of late 1980s and 1990s as described, for example, by Christopher Bennett. According to him, Serbian nationalist politicians have made associations to Serbian "martyrdom" in history (from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 to the genocide during World War II) to justify Serbian politics of the 1980s and 1990s; these associations are allegedly exemplified in Slobodan Milošević's Gazimestan speech at Kosovo Polje in 1989. The reaction to the speech as well as the use of the associated term Serbophobia is a matter of heated debate even today.^[67] In late 1988, months before the Revolutions of 1989, Milošević accused critics of his regime and political tactics like the Slovenian leader Milan Kučan of “spreading fear of Serbia”.^[68] According to political scientist David Bruce Macdonald, the term was popularised in the 1980s and 1990s during the re-analysis of Serbian history.^[69] The term was often likened to anti-Semitism, and expressed itself as a re-analysis of history where every event that had a negative effect on the Serbs was likened to a "tragedy".^[69] Often associated with the politics of Serbian victimization of late 1980s and 1990s.^[70]

See also

• Kosovo: Can You Imagine? - documentary film
• Stolen Kosovo - documentary film

References

Further reading

National Library of Serbia's catalogue lists following books written about serbophobia:

• Serbophobia and its sources: Mitrović, Jeremija D. (1991). Srbofobija i njeni izvori. Belgrade: Naučna knjiga. ISBN 86-23-03053-2.  (second edition Srbofobija i njeni izvori. Belgrade: Službeni glasnik. 2005. ISBN 86-7549-423-8. )
• Serbophobia and antisemitism: Ekmedžić, Milorad (2000). Srbofobija i antisemitizam. Šabac: Beli anđeo. 
• On serbophobia through centuries: Blagojević, Lazar; Ilišković, Rajko; Pavlović, Ilija (2004). O srbofobiji kroz vijekove. Šamac: Prosvjeta. ISBN 99938-687-2-8. 
• Србообија и њени извори, Јеремија Д. Митровић, Издање: Политика и друштво, 1992, ISBN 86-23-03053-2 (Serbian)

External links

• Cambridge Papers article Victim Chic? The Rhetoric of victimhood including Serbophobia
• Northern California Jewish Bulletin
• Mentioned in Library of Congress of USA
• Globalizing the Holocaust: A Jewish "useable" past in Serbian nationalism, by David McDonald, University of Otago, New Zealand

Use in various languages

• Neue Serbophilie und alte Serbophobie, "New Serbophilia and Old Serbophobia", a Junge Welt article, in German
• Marc Fumaroli, an article from Lire, a French literary magazine, in French
• Europa e nuovi nazionalismi, an article by Luca Rastello, in Italian
• Бомбы или гражданская война, a Sevodnya article, in Russian
• Сатанизација Срба, коме она треба?, a book by Boris Olijnik, in Serbian
• 'СПЦ може да предизвика србофобија кај Македонците, a Nova Makedonija article, in Macedonian
• Ku është antimillosheviqi?, an AIM article, in Albanian
• Ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and Metohija, From World War II to present (Serbian)

Anti-cultural, -national or -ethnic sentiment Albanian American Arab Armenian Australia British Canadian Catalan Chilean Chinese English Estonian European French German Haitian Hispanic Igbo Indian Iranian Irish Italian Israel Japanese Jewish Korean Malay Mexican Pakistani Polish Portuguese Quebec Romani Romanian Russian Scottish Serb Turkish Ukrainian Western See also: Cultural appreciation