ИМАГИНАРНА СРБИЈА И ИМАГИНАРНИ СРБИ
IMAGINARY SERBIA AND IMAGINARY SERBS

Summary/Abstract: The reviewers – specialists in three distinct historical periods (the Middle Ages, the Early Modern Era, and the Modern Age) – set out to assess the scientific grounding of A Concise History of Serbia. The author, Dejan Djokic, demonstrates the sensitivity, knowledge, and skill required to write a national historical synthesis. Unfortunately, these qualities are overshadowed by an anachronistic portrayal of Serbian history, viewed through the lens of Balkanist narratives and contemporary ideological and political discourse – liberal in the West and the UK, and, in Serbia, what the reviewers term “other Serbianism,” an imitative domestic version. The book overemphasizes Serbia’s multi-confessional and multiethnic character, the influence of the West, and the role of minorities, while neglecting core elements such as the people/nation as a historical category, the church, military history, the influence of Byzantium and Russia, (which is affirmative in the Serbian history), traditional and popular culture, and the broader socioeconomic transformation from agrarian to industrial and post-industrial society. Furthermore, the author excludes Kosovo and the Raška region (Sandžak) from Serbia’s historical and territorial framework, and significantly downplays the Serbian character of Montenegro. He minimized the history of extermination of Serbs in the western part of the region of which they are inhabitants (nowadays Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina). He nullified, for the most part, the history and identity of Serbs outside Serbia prior to the 20th century. Djokic presents a national history largely without reference to the achievements of mainstream Serbian historiography. Such an approach drew him to a circle of failures, omission and mistakes. The end result is the imaginary Serbia and imaginary Serbs, lacking in continuity with the Medieval history, with undefined boundaries and identity, rendered incomparable with other countries and nations, and burdened by an exaggerated focus on Serbian crimes against its neighbors.

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