Anti-Serb sentiment orSerbophobia (Serbian:србофобија,romanized: srbofobija) refers to negative attitudes, prejudice or discrimination towardsSerbs as an ethnic group. Historically, it has been a basis for thepersecution,ethnic cleansing, andgenocide of ethnic Serbs.
A distinctive form of anti-Serb sentiment is anti-Serbian sentiment, which can be defined as hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination againstSerbia as anation-state for Serbs. Additionally, another form of anti-Serb sentiment is discrimination or bias againstRepublika Srpska, the Serb-majorityentity inBosnia and Herzegovina.
Among the most widely-known historical proponents of anti-Serb sentiment was the 19th- and 20th-century CroatianParty of Rights. The most extreme elements of this party later became theUstaše in theKingdom of Yugoslavia, a Croatian fascist organization that came to power duringWorld War II and instituted racial laws that specifically targeted Serbs,Jews,Roma and political dissidents. Their actions culminated in thegenocide of Serbs and otherminority groups that lived in that lived in the territory of the then-Independent State of Croatia.
The opposite of Serbophobia isSerbophilia.
Anti-Serb sentiment in theKosovo Vilayet grew in the aftermath of theOttoman-Serb andOttoman-Greek conflicts during the period between 1877 and 1897. With theBattle of Vranje in 1878, thousands ofOttoman-Albanian troops and Albanian civilians were expelled into the Eastern part of Ottoman-held Kosovo Vilayet.[1] These displaced persons, known asMuhaxir, were highly hostile towards the Serbs in the areas they had retreated to, considering that they had beenexpelled from theVranje area due to the Ottoman-Serb conflict.[2] This animosity fuelled anti-Serb sentiment, which resulted in Albanians committing widespreadatrocities against Serb civilians, including physical assaults and killings, across the entire territory, including parts ofPristina andBujanovac.[3]
Atrocities against Serbs in the region eventuallypeaked in 1901 after the region was flooded with weapons that were not handed back to the Ottomans after the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.[4] In May 1901, Albanians pillaged and partially burned the cities ofNovi Pazar,Sjenica, and Pristina, and massacred Serbs in the area of Kolašin.[5][6] David Little suggests that the actions of Albanians at the time constitutedethnic cleansing as they attempted to create a homogeneous area free of Christian Serbs.[7]
TheSociety Against Serbs was aBulgarian nationalist organization established in 1897 inThessaloniki,Ottoman Empire. The organization's activists were both "Centralists" and "Vrhovnists" of the Bulgarian revolutionary committees (theInternal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and theSupreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee). By 1902, they had murdered at least 43 people and wounded 52 others, including owners of Serbian schools, teachers,Serbian Orthodox clergy, and other notable Serbs in theOttoman Empire.[8] Additionally, Bulgarians used the slur word "Serbomans" for people of non-Serbian origin, but with Serbian self-determination in Macedonia.[citation needed]
Anti-Serbian sentiment coalesced in 19th-century Croatia when some of the Croatian intelligentsia planned the creation of a Croatiannation-state.[9]Croatia was at the time part of theHabsburg monarchy, while since 1804, it was part of theAustrian Empire, although it remained in personal union with theKingdom of Hungary. After theAustro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, it eventually became part ofTransleithania, whileDalmatia andIstria remained separateAustrian crown lands.Ante Starčević, the leader of theParty of Rights between 1851 and 1896, believed Croats should confront their neighbors, includingSerbs.[10] Among others, he wrote that Serbs were an "unclean race" and, with the co-founder of his party,Eugen Kvaternik, denied the existence of Serbs or Slovenes in Croatia, perceiving their political consciousness as a threat.[11][12] During the 1850s, Starčević forged the termSlavoserb (Latin:sclavus, servus) to describe people supposedly ready to serve foreign rulers, initially used to refer to some Serbs and his Croat opponent, and later applied to all Serbs by his followers.[13] TheAustro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 likely contributed to the development of Starčević's anti-Serb sentiment, as he believed that it significantly increased the chances for the establishment ofGreater Croatia.[14]David Bruce MacDonald has put forward a thesis that Starčević's theories could only justifyethnocide but notgenocide because Starčević intended toassimilate Serbs as "Orthodox Croats", and not to exterminate them.[15]
Starčević's ideas formed the basis for the destructive politics of his successor,Josip Frank, aCroatian Jewish lawyer and politician who converted toCatholicism[16][17] and led numerous anti-Serbian incidents.[10] Josip Frank carried on Starčević's ideology and defined Croat identity "strictly in terms of Serbophobia."[18] Due to his staunch opposition to any cooperation between Croats and Serbs,Milovan Djilas described him as "a leading anti-Serbian demagogue and the instigator of thepersecution of Serbs in Croatia."[18] His followers, referred to asFrankovci, would go on to become the most ardent members ofUstaše.[18] Under Frank's leadership, the Party of Rights became obsessively anti-Serb,[19][20] and such sentiments dominated Croatian political life in the 1880s.[21] British historianC. A. Macartney stated that due to the "gross intolerance" toward Serbs who lived inSlavonia, they had to seek protection from CountKároly Khuen-Héderváry, theBan of Croatia-Slavonia, in 1883.[22] During his reign from 1883 to 1903, Hungarian authorities intentionally exacerbated further division and hatred between Serbs and Croats to further theirMagyarization policy.[22] Carmichael writes that ethnic division between the Croats and the Serbs at the turn of the 20th century was stoked by a nationalist press and was "incubated entirely in the minds of extremists andfanatics, with little evidence that the areas in which Serbs and Croats had lived for many centuries in close proximity, such asKrajina, were more prone toethnically inspired violence."[14] In 1902 major anti-Serb riots in Croatia were caused by an article written by Serbian nationalist writerNikola Stojanović (1880–1964) titledDo istrage vaše ili naše (Till the destruction of you or us) which denied the existence of a Croat nation and forecasted the result of an "inevitable" Serbian-Croatian conflict, that was reprinted in theSerb Independent Party'sSrbobran magazine.[23]
Between the mid-19th and early 20th century there were two factions in theCatholic Church in Croatia: the progressive faction which preferred uniting Croatia with Serbia in a progressive Slavic country, and the conservative faction that opposed this.[24] The conservative faction became dominant by the end of the 19th century: The First Croatian Catholic Congress held inZagreb in 1900 was unreservedly Serbophobic and anti-Orthodox.[24]
After theBalkan Wars in 1912–1913, anti-Serb sentiment increased in the Austro-Hungarian administration ofBosnia and Herzegovina.[26]Oskar Potiorek, governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, closed many Serb societies and significantly contributed to the anti-Serb mood before the outbreak ofWorld War I.[26][27]
Theassassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria andSophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in 1914 led to theAnti-Serb pogrom in Sarajevo.Ivo Andrić refers to this event as the "Sarajevo frenzy of hate."[28] The crowds directed their anger principally at Serb shops, residences of prominent Serbs, theSerbian Orthodox Church, schools, banks, the Serb cultural societyProsvjeta, and theSrpska riječ newspaper offices. Two Serbs were killed that day.[29] That night there were anti-Serb riots in other parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire[30] includingZagreb andDubrovnik.[31] In the aftermath of the Sarajevo assassination anti-Serb sentiment ran high throughout the Habsburg Empire.[32] Austria-Hungary imprisoned and extradited around 5,500 prominent Serbs, sentenced 460 to death, and established the predominantly Muslim[33] special militiaSchutzkorps which carried on the persecution of Serbs.[34]
The Sarajevo assassination became thecasus belli for World War I.[35] Taking advantage of an international wave of revulsion against this act of "Serbian nationalist terrorism," Austria-Hungary gave Serbia an ultimatum which led to World War I. Although the Serbs of Austria-Hungary were loyal citizens whose majority participated in its forces during the war, anti-Serb sentiment systematically spread and members of the ethnic group were persecuted all over the country.[36] Austria-Hungary soon occupied the territory of theKingdom of Serbia, includingKosovo, boosting already intense anti-Serbian sentiment among Albanians whose volunteer units were established to reduce the number ofSerbs in Kosovo.[37] A cultural example is thejingle "Alle Serben müssen sterben" ("All Serbs Must Die"), which was popular inVienna in 1914. (It was also known as "Serbien muß sterbien").[38]
Orders issued on 3 and 13 October 1914 banned the use ofSerbian Cyrillic in theKingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, limiting it to use in religious instruction. A decree was passed on 3 January 1915, that banned Serbian Cyrillic completely from public use. An imperial order on 25 October 1915, banned the use of Serbian Cyrillic in theCondominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, except "within the scope of Serb Orthodox Church authorities."[39][40]
In the 1920s,Italian fascists accused Serbs of having "atavistic impulses" and they claimed that theYugoslavs were conspiring together on behalf of "Grand Orientmasonry and its funds." Oneantisemitic claim was that Serbs were part of a "social-democratic,masonic Jewish internationalist plot."[41]Benito Mussolini viewed not just the Serbs but the whole "Slavic race" as inferior and barbaric.[42] He identified the Yugoslavs as a threat to Italy and he claimed that the threat rallied Italians together at the end ofWorld War I: "The danger of seeing the Jugo-Slavians settle along the whole Adriatic shore had caused a bringing together in Rome of the cream of our unhappy regions. Students, professors, workmen, citizens—representative men—were entreating the ministers and the professional politicians."[43]
The relations between Croats and Serbs were stressed at the very beginning of the Yugoslav state.[44] Opponents to theYugoslav unification in the Croatian elite portrayed Serbs negatively, as hegemonists and exploiters, introducing Serbophobia into Croatian society.[44] It was reported that in Lika, there was serious tension between Croats and Serbs.[45] In post-war Osijek, theŠajkača hat was banned by the police but the Austro-Hungarian cap was freely worn, and in the school and judicial system the Orthodox Serbs were termed "Greek-Eastern."[46] There was voluntary segregation inKnin.[47]
A 1993 report of theCommission on Security and Cooperation in Europe stated thatBelgrade's centralist policies for theKingdom of Yugoslavia led to increased anti-Serbian sentiment in Croatia.[48]
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Serbs, as well as otherSlavs (mainlyPoles andRussians), as well as non-Slavic peoples (such asJews andRoma), were not consideredAryans byNazi Germany. Instead, they were considered subhumans, inferior races (Untermenschen), andforeign races, and as a result, they were not considered part of the Aryanmaster race.[49][50] Serbs, along with the Poles, were at the bottom of the Slavic "racial hierarchy" established by the Nazis.[51]Anti-Serb sentiment increasingly infiltrated GermanNazism afterAdolf Hitler was appointed as Germany's chancellor in 1933. The roots of this sentiment can be found in his early life in Vienna,[52] and when he was informed about theYugoslav coup d'état that a group of pro-Western Serb officers conducted in March 1941, he decided to punish all Serbs as the main enemies of his new Nazi order.[53] The propaganda ministry ofJoseph Goebbels, with the support of the Bulgarian, Italian, and Hungarian press, was tasked with stimulating anti-Serb sentiment among theCroats,Slovenes, andHungarians.[54] The propaganda of theAxis powers accused the group of persecuting minorities and establishing concentration camps forethnic Germans in order to justify an attack onYugoslavia and Nazi Germany portrayed itself as a force which would save the Yugoslav people from the threat of Serb nationalism.[54] In 1941,Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by the military forces of the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Kingdom of Hungary).
TheAxis occupation of Serbia enabled theUstaše, a Croatian fascist[55] and terrorist organization, to implement its extreme anti-Serbian ideology in theIndependent State of Croatia (NDH).[56] Its anti-Serb sentiment wasracist andgenocidal.[57][58] The new government adopted racial laws, similar tothose which existed in Nazi Germany, and it aimed them atJews,Roma people, and Serbs, who were all defined as being "aliens outside the national community"[59] and persecuted throughout the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) duringWorld War II.[60] It is estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000 Serbs were killed in the NDH by the Ustaše and their Axis allies.[61][62] Overall, the number of Serbs who were killed in Yugoslavia during World War II was about 700,000, the majority of whom were massacred by various fascist forces.[63][64] Many historians and authors describe the Ustaše regime's mass killings of Serbs as meeting the definition of genocide, includingRaphael Lemkin, who became recognized for coining the wordgenocide and initiating theGenocide Convention.[65][66][67][68][69][70] TheSisak concentration camp was set up on 3 August 1942 by the Ustaše government following theKozara Offensive, and it was speciallyformed for children.[71][72][73]
Some priests in theCroatian Catholic Church actively participated in these Ustaša massacres and the mass conversion of Serbs to Catholicism.[74] During the war, about 250,000 people of the Orthodox faith who were living within the territory of the NDH were either forced or coerced into converting to Catholicism by the Ustaša authorities.[75] One of the reasons for the close cooperation of a part of the Catholic clergy was its anti-Serb position.[76]
WhenKosovo became part of Serbia after WWI, the Yugoslav authorities expelled 400,000 Albanians from Kosovo in the interwar period and promoted the settlement ofmostly Serb colonists in the region.[77] In WWII, western and central Kosovo became part of Albania, with Kosovo Albanians subsequently enacting brutal reprisals against the colonists.[78] During the Italian occupation of Albania in WWII, between 70,000 and 100,000 Serbs were expelled and thousands massacred in annexed Kosovo by Albanian paramilitaries, mainly by theVulnetari andBalli Kombëtar.[77][79]Xhafer Deva recruited Kosovo Albanians to join theWaffen-SS.[80] The21stWaffen Mountain Division of the SSSkanderbeg (1st Albanian) was formed on 1 May 1944,[81] composed of ethnic Albanians, named after Albanian national heroSkanderbeg, who fought the Ottomans in the 15th century.[82] The division was better known for murdering, raping, and looting in predominantly Serbian areas than for participating in combat operations on behalf of the German war effort.[83] Deva and his collaborators were anti-Slavic and advocated for an ethnically pureGreater Albania.[84] By September 1944, with theAllied victory in the Balkans imminent, Deva and his men attempted to purchase weapons from withdrawing German soldiers in order to organize a "final solution" of the Slavic population of Kosovo. Nothing came of this as the powerfulYugoslav Partisans prevented any large-scaleethnic cleansing of Slavs from occurring.[79] However, these conflicts were relatively low-level compared with other areas of Yugoslavia during the war years.[85]
Nearly four decades later, in the 1986 draft of theMemorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, concern was expressed that Serbophobia, together with other things, could provoke the restoration of Serbian nationalism with dangerous consequences.[86] The 1987 Yugoslav economic crisis, and different opinions within Serbia and other republics about what were the best ways to resolve it, exacerbated growing anti-Serbian sentiment among non-Serbs, but also enhanced Serbian support for Serbian nationalism.[87]
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During theYugoslav Wars of the 1990s, anti-Serb sentiment became widespread across Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo,[88] and because of its independence and its historical association with Serbophobia, the Independent State of Croatia would sometimes serve as a rallying symbol for people who intended to proclaim aversion towards Serbia.[89] It also worked vice versa. And while the Serbian nationalism of the time is well-known, anti-Serb sentiment was present in all non-Serb republics of Yugoslavia duringits breakup.[90] It is estimated that in the 90s, up to 2.8 million books were written off from Croatian public libraries, with most of them being destroyed under the guise of the regular process of writing off lost and damaged books from the library systems; the targeted books were frequently Serbian or printed inCyrillic, along with books ideologically associated with the dissolved Yugoslavian state.[91][92]
In 1997, theFR Yugoslavia submitted claims to theInternational Court of Justice in which it charged that Bosnia and Herzegovina was responsible for the acts of genocide which were committed against theSerbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, acts which were incited by anti-Serb sentiment and rhetoric which was communicated through all forms of the media. For example, TheNovi Vox, a Muslim youth paper, published a poem titled "Patriotic Song" with the following verses: "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."[93] The paperZmaj od Bosne published an article with a sentence saying "Each Muslim must name a Serb and take an oath to kill him."[93] The radio stationHajat regularly broadcast "public calls for the execution of Serbs."[93]
According toVojislav Koštunica and British commentatorMary Dejevky, in the summer of 1995, theFrench president,Jacques Chirac, created controversy when he commented on theBosnian War, he reportedly called Serbs "a nation ofrobbers andterrorists."[94][95]
During the war in Croatia, French writerAlain Finkielkraut insinuated that Serbs were inherently evil, comparing Serb actions to the Nazis during World War II.[96]
During theNATO bombing of Yugoslavia, columnistThomas Friedman wrote the following inThe New York Times on 23 April 1999: "Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation (the Serbs certainly think so), and the stakes have to be very clear: Every week you ravage Kosovo is another decade we will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want1389? [referring to theBattle of Kosovo] We can do 1389 too." Friedman urged the US to destroy "in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge [and] road", annex Albania and Macedonia as "U.S. protectorates", "occupy the Balkans for years," and "[g]ive war a chance."[97]Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) labeled Friedman's remarks "war-mongering" and "crude race-hatred and war-crime agitation."[98]
Danon Cadik,Chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia, condemned what he stated to be the "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."[99]
Outside the Balkans,Noam Chomsky observed that not just the government of Serbia, but also the people, were reviled and threatened. He described thejingoism as "a phenomenon I have not seen in my lifetime since the hysteria whipped up about 'the Japs' during World War II."[100] Chomsky made such comments while alsodenying some aspects of theBosnian genocide.[101]
Some criticism of Anti-Serb sentiment or Serbophobia purportedly corresponds to its interplay with perceived historical revisionism and myths practiced by some Serbian nationalist writers and the government of Slobodan Milošević in the 1990s.[102] According to political scientistDavid Bruce MacDonald, in the 1980s Serbs increasingly began to compare themselves to Jews as fellow victims in world history, which involved tragedizing historic events, from the 1389Battle of Kosovo to the1974 Yugoslav Constitution, as every aspect of history was seen as yet another example of persecution and victimisation of Serbs at the hands of external negative forces.[103] Serbophobia was often likened toantisemitism 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, and used to justify territorial expansion into neighbouring regions.[104] According to Christopher Bennett, former director of theInternational Crisis Group in the Balkans, the idea of historic Serb martyrdom grew out of the thinking and writing ofDobrica Ćosić who developed a complex and paradoxical theory of Serb national persecution, which evolved over two decades between the late 1960s and the late 1980s into theGreater Serbian programme.[105] Additionally, 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.[105] In late 1988, months before theRevolutions of 1989, Milošević accused his critics, like theSlovenian political leaderMilan Kučan, of "spreading fear of Serbia" as a political tactic.[106]
At a football game between Kosovo and Croatia played in Albania in October 2016, the fans together chanted murderous slogans against Serbs.[107] Both countries face FIFA hearings due to the incident.[108] Croatian and Ukrainian sports fans have put up hate messages towards Serbs and Russians during a match of their national teams in the2018 FIFA World Cup qualifier.[109]
The worst ethnic violence inKosovo since the end of the 1999 conflict erupted in the partitioned town ofMitrovica, leaving hundreds wounded and at least 14 people dead.United Nations peacekeepers andNATO troops scrambled to contain a raging gun battle betweenSerbs and ethnicAlbanians.[110] Within hours the province was immersed in anti-Serb and anti-UN rioting and had regressed to levels of violence not seen since 1999. InSerbia the events were also called theMarch Pogrom (Serbian:Мартовски погром /Martovski pogrom). International courts inPristina have prosecuted several people who attacked several Serbian Orthodox churches, handing down jail sentences ranging from 21 months to 16 years.[111] Numerous Serbian cultural sites in Kosovo were destroyed during and after theKosovo War. According to theInternational Center for Transitional Justice, 155Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were destroyed by Kosovo Albanians between June 1999 and March 2004.[112]
Kosovo Albanian media depict Serbia and Serbs as a threat to state frame and security, as disrupting institutional order, draining resources, being extremists, tied to criminal activities (inNorth Kosovo), and in retrospect as perpetrators of war crimes and violations of humans rights (reminding the public of Serbs as enemies). Serbs are blamed for inducing theKosovo War, and since the war are negatively characterized as uncooperative, aggressive, extremist while the Serbian crimes in the war are termed "genocide."[113]
Croatian nationalist propaganda, especially theCatholic Church supported groups, often advocates anti-Serb views.[114][115] In 2015Amnesty International reported thatCroatian Serbs continued to face discrimination in public sector employment and the restitution of tenancy rights to social housing vacated during the war.[116] In 2017 they again pointed Serbs faced significant barriers to employment and obstacles to regain their property. Amnesty International also said that right to use minority languages and scripts continued to be politicized and unimplemented in some towns and that heightened nationalist rhetoric and hate speech contributed to growing ethnic intolerance and insecurity.[117] According to the 2018European Commission against Racism and Intolerance report, racist and intolerant hate speech in public discourse is escalating; and one of the main targets are Serbs.[118]
Croatian usage of the Ustaše saluteZa dom spremni, the equivalent of Nazi saluteSieg Heil, is not banned.[119] It is deemed unconstitutional but allowed in "exceptional situations."[120] In 2016, this salute was inscribed on a plaque that was installed near the site of Jasenovac, sparking a reaction from the Serb and Jewish community. It has also been chanted during football matches.[121] Some Croats, including politicians, have attempted todeny and to minimise the magnitude of the genocide perpetrated against Serbs in theIndependent State of Croatia.[122] From 2016 to 2019, anti-fascist groups, leaders of Croatia's Serb, Roma, and Jewish communities and former top Croat officials boycotted the official state commemoration for the victims of theJasenovac concentration camp because, as they said, Croatian authorities refused to denounce the Ustaša legacy explicitly and tolerated the downplaying and revitalization of their crimes, which included the equation of these crimes with thecommunist crimes from 1945.[123][124][125][126][127]
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In 2013 it was reported that a group of right-wing extremists hadtaken over the Croatian Wikipedia, editing mostly articles related to the Ustaše, whitewashing their crimes, and articles targeting Serbs.[128][129] In the same year there wereprotests inVukovar against introducing Serbian language and Cyrillic script signs, because according to one organizer there had to be a "sign of respect for the sacrificeVukovar has made."[130] Later signs with Cyrillic on administrative buildings were destroyed by Croatian veterans.[131] In 2019, Ivan Penava, Mayor of Vukovar, presented the conclusion that conditions have not been met to introduce special rights on the equal use of the Serbian minority's language and script in Vukovar.[132]
Serbian politicians have recently accused Croatian politicians of anti-Serbian sentiment.[133] In its 2016 report on human rights in Croatia, theUnited States Department of State warned about pro-Ustaše and anti-Serb sentiment in Croatia.[134] According to theSerbian National Council, hate speech, threats and violence against Serbs rose by 57% in 2016.[135] On 12 February 2018, when Serbian presidentVučić was to meet with Croatian government representatives in Zagreb, hundreds of demonstrators chanted the saluteZa dom spremni! at the city square.[136]
Marko Perković and bandThompson created controversy by performing songs that openly glorifies theUstaša regime and the Genocide of Serbs.[137] The band performedJasenovac i Gradiška Stara, which celebrate the massacres at theJasenovac andStara Gradiška, which were among the largestextermination camps in Europe.[138]
In 2019, there were several alleged hate-motivated incidents targeting Serbs in Croatia, including an attack on threeVK Crvena zvezda players in the coastal city ofSplit, an attack on four seasonal workers in the town ofSupetar, two of whom were Serbs, singled out by the attackers due to the dialect they were using, and an attack on Serbs who were watching aRed Star Belgrade match.[139] The latter which resulted in injuries to five people, including a minor, resulted in the indictment of 15 men for committing a hate crime.[139]
Some observers have describedMilo Đukanović, the longtime ruler ofMontenegro, as a Serbophobe.[140][141]Serbs of Montenegro have supposedly been pressured to declare themselvesMontenegrins, following the2006 referendum.[142][better source needed] The acquisition of Montenegro's independence has renewed thedispute over the ethnic and linguistic identity.[143][144][145][146] Although the majority of citizens in Montenegro declare themselves to speak Serbian language, it is not recognized as an official language.[147] A number of Serbian writers have recently been removed from the school curriculum in Montenegro, which was described as creation of an "anti-Serb atmosphere" by a Serbian MP.[148]
According to the 2017 survey conducted by theCouncil of Europe in cooperation with the Office of the stateombudsman, 45% of respondents reported experiences ofreligious discrimination and perception of discrimination were highest by a significant margin amongSerbian Orthodox Church members, while Serbs were facing discrimination considerably more than other ethnic communities.[149][150] In June 2019, Mirna Nikčević, first adviser to theEmbassy of Montenegro in Turkey, commented on protests in front of theCathedral of the Resurrection of Christ inPodgorica against the announced controversial religious law: "Honestly, I would burn the temple and all the cattle there."[151] A few days later, Zoran Vujović, an actor of theMontenegrin National Theatre, has posted a lot of insults against the Serbs on his Facebook profile, saying that they were "nothingness, ignorant, degenerate, and poisonous."[152][153] According to some reporters, pro-Serbian media have faced discrimination.[154]
As of late December 2019, the newly proclaimed religion law or officiallyLaw on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Legal Status of Religious Communities, whichde jure transfers the ownership of church buildings and estates from the Serbian Orthodox Church to the Montenegrin state,[155][156] sparked a series ofpeaceful nationwide protests which continued to February 2020.[157] TheFreedom House described the adoption of the law, which is widely seen to target the Serbian Orthodox Church, as "questionable decision."[158] Eighteen opposition MPs, mostly Serbs, were arrested prior to the voting, under the charge for violently disrupting the vote.[158][159] Some church officials were attacked by the police[160][161] and a number of journalists, opposition activists and protesting citizens were arrested.[162][163][164]President Milo Đukanović called the protesting citizens "a lunatic movement."[165][166][167]
Among derogatory terms for Serbs are "Vlachs" (Власи /Vlasi) which was used mainly inHrvatsko Zagorje during rebellion in the early 20th century.[168] and "Chetniks" (четници /četnici) used by Croats and Bosniaks;[169]Shkije by Albanians;[170][171] whileČefurji is used in Slovenia for immigrants from other former Yugoslav republics.[172] In Montenegro, a widely used derogatory term for Serbs isPosrbice (посрбице), and it denotes "Montenegrins who identify as Serbs."[173]
The sloganSrbe na vrbe! (Србе на врбе), meaning "Hang Serbs from the willow trees!" (lit. 'Serbs onto willows!') originates from a poem, and was first used by theSlovene politicianMarko Natlačen in 1914, at the beginning of the Austro-Hungarianwar against Serbia.[174][175] It was popularized beforeWorld War II byMile Budak,[176] the chief architect of Ustaše ideology against Serbs. During World War II there were mass hangings of Serbs in theIndependent State of Croatia as part of the Ustaše persecution of the Serbs.
In present-dayCroatian nationalists and people who oppose the return of Serb refugees often use the slogan.Graffiti with the phrase is common, and was noted in the press when it was found painted on a church in 2004,[177] 2006,[178] and on another church in 2008.[179] In 2010, a banner displaying the slogan appeared in the midst of tourist season at the entrance toSplit, a major tourist hub in Croatia, during aDavis Cup tennis match between the two countries. It was removed by the police within hours,[180] and the banner's creator was later apprehended and charged.[181] In 2016, a Serbian Orthodox church inGeelong, Australia, was spray-painted with the slogan, along with other neo-Nazi symbols.[182]
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Anti-Serbian sentiment had already been expressed throughout the nineteenth century when Croatian intellectuals began to make plans for their own national state. They viewed the presence of more than one million Serbs in Krajina and Slavonia as intolerable.
For Starčević ... Serbs were 'unclean race' ... Along with ... Eugen Kvaternik believed that 'there could be no Slovene or Serb people in Croatia because their existence could only be expressed in the right to a separate political territory.
Starcevic was extremely anti-Serb, seeing Serb political consciousness as a threat to Croats.
In polemics of the 1850s, Starčević also coined a misleading term – "Slavoserb", derived from the Latin word "sclavus" and "servus" to denote persons ready to serve foreign rulers against their own people.
in the case of Frank's followers ... strongly anti-Serb
Under Josip Frank, who carried the rightists into a new era, the party became obsessively anti-Serbian.
Thus, from the mid-nineteenth century until the 1920s, the church in Croatia was riven into two factions: the progressives, who favored the incorporation of Croatia into a liberal Slavic state ... and the conservatives, ... who were loath to bind Catholic Croatia to Orthodox Serbia. ... By 1900 the exclusivist orientation seems to have gained the upper hand in Catholic circles and the First Croatian Catholic Congress, held in Zagreb that year, was implicitly anti-Orthodox and anti-Serb.
The Balkan Wars left Serbia as the region's strongest power. Serbia's relationship with Austria-Hungary remained antagonistic, and the Habsburg administration in Bosnia-Hercegovina became anti-Serb ... the governor of Bosnia declared state of emergency, dissolved the parliament, ... and closed down many Serb associations ...
The anti-Serb policy and mood that emerged in the months leading up to the First World War were the result of the machinations of Gen. Oskar von Potiorek (1853-1933), Bosnia-Herzegovina's heavy-handed military governor.
Andric describes the "Sarajevo frenzy of hate" that erupted among Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox believers following the assassination on 28 June 1914, of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo
anti-Serbian demonstrations in Sarajevo, Zagreb and Ragusa.
arrested and interned some 5.500 prominent Serbs and sentenced to death some 460 persons, a new Schutzkorps, an auxiliary militia, widened the anti-Serb repression.
Mit Kreide war an die Waggons geschrieben: »Jeder Schuß ein Russ', jeder Stoß ein Franzos', jeder Tritt ein Brit', alle Serben müssen sterben.« Die Soldaten lachten, als ich die Inschrift laut las. Es war eine Aufforderung, mitzulachen.
When dealing with such a race as Slavic – inferior and barbarian – we must not pursue the carrot, but the stick policy. We should not be afraid of new victims. The Italian border should run across the Brenner Pass, Monte Nevoso and the Dinaric Alps. I would say we can easily sacrifice 500,000 barbaric Slavs for 50,000 Italians.[permanent dead link]
Increasing centralization by Belgrade, however, encouraged anti-Serbian sentiment in Croatia
We are the Master Race and must govern hard but just ... I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come to spread bliss ... The population must work, work, and work again ... We are a master race, which must remember that the lowliest German worker is racially and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population [of the Ukraine]. (emphasis added)
German anti-Serbian sentiment increased after Hitler's ascent to power in 1933. His Serbophobia, which was rooted in the years of his youth which he spent in Vienna, was virulent. As a result, Nazi ideology became permeated with anti-Serbian sentiment.
Serbia proper was under strict German occupation, a situation which allowed the Ustasha to pursue its radical anti-Serbian policy
It was racist and genocidal hatred of people who merely had different national consciousness
The Ustasha regime ... inaugurated the most brutal campaign of mass murder against civilian population that Southern Europe has ever witnessed ... The campaign of mass murder and deportation against the Serb population was initially justified onscientific racist principles.
The new government quickly adopted Nazi-type racial laws and genocidal tactics to deal with Roma, Serbs and Jews, whom these laws termed "aliens outside the national community".
Close collaboration between Ustaša and part of catholic clergy followed ... above all anti-Serbian ...
The present depressing condition of the Serbian nation, with chauvinism and Serbophobia being ever more violently expressed in certain circles, favor of a revival of Serbian nationalism, an increasingly drastic expression of Serbian national sensitivity, and reactions that can be volatile and even dangerous.
By 1987 accelerating inflation and rapid depreciation of the dinar were strengthening Slovene and Croatian demands for sweeping economic liberalization, but these were blocked by Serbia. This exacerbated the growing anti-Serbian sentiments among non-Serbs, but also enhanced Serbian support for Milošević's nationalism and his manipulation of the Kosovo issue, culminating in the abolition of the autonomy of that region.
Because of its independence from Belgrade (though not from Berlin) and because of its association with anti-Serb and anti-Allied politics, the NDH would later serve as a rallying symbol for those who wanted to declare their antipathy towards Serbia (during the War of Yugoslav secession)
Nationalist and Liberal Echoes in Other Republics Every republic and autonomous province was struck by nationalist outbursts in these years, and among all the non-Serbian nationalities, there were strong anti- Serbian feelings.
The hostile 'them' were labelled either as the abstract but omnipresent 'aggressor' or as the stereotypical 'Chetniks' and 'Serbo-communists'. Other derogatory references in Večernji list, ...
Албанци Србе зову Шкије, и то им је сасвим у реду, иако је то исто увредљиво као српски погрдни назив за Албанце
gdje je Budak, izgleda po prvi puta, upotrijebio krilaticu «Srbe na vrbe»
