Heavenly Serbia In Croatia

Traces Serbia's nationalist and expansionist impulses to the legendary battle of Kosovo in 1389 As violence and turmoil continue to define the former Yugoslavia, basic questions remain unanswered: What are the forces behind the Serbian expansionist drive that has brought death and destruction to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo? How did the Serbs rationalize, and rally support for, this genocidal activity? Heavenly Serbia traces Serbia's nationalist and expansionist impulses to the legendary battle of Kosovo in 1389. Anzulovic shows how the myth of "Heavenly Serbia" developed to help the Serbs endure foreign domination, explaining their military defeat and the loss of their medieval state by emphasizing their own moral superiority over military victory. Heavenly Serbia shows how this myth resulted in an aggressive nationalist ideology which has triumphed in the late twentieth century and marginalized those Serbs who strive for the establishment of a civil society. Author interview with CNN: http://www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/branimir_chat.html

In his book "Heavenly Serbia" in Croatia, Nenad Piskač reveals the world-view-ideological, political, normative and organisational structure of Greater-Serbian armed aggression on the Republic of Croatia, based on authentic RSK (Republic of Serbian Krajina) documents. The central part of the book are the RSK documents and sources, which have been entirely unavailable to the Croatian and foreign public until now. On the basis of these documents, the author reconstructs the ideology, goals and chronology of the establishment of the occupying Serbian Government on Croatian territory. He documents their radicalism, terrorism, anti-ecumenism and St. Sava fundamentalism in refusing any type of recognition of the Croatian state. The book also publishes for the first-time documents which undoubtedly show the systematic preparation of Serbian terrorists in Croatia for the evacuation of "all inhabitants unfit to fight" in the event of any reintegration of the occupied areas into the Croatian state. The book also contains corresponding commands issued by the Greater-Serbian terrorists on the eve of Oluja (Operation Storm) and the years-long operational plans for "evacuation" of Serbs from Croatia, thereby completely denying all accusations (made by Serbia, The Hague and Croatia) of alleged ethnic cleansing committed by the Croatian State (a "criminal organisation" according to Carl Bildt, Carla del Ponte, Savo Strbac, and others). The published documents most clearly give evidence of how thoroughly the Greater Serbian project was planned, led and carried out (from 1990 to 1995). By citing a great number of data also from authentic documents from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Piskač concisely points out and identifies the 150 years of genesis and continuity of the Greater-Serbian Saint Sava ideology. The book emphasises the explicit conceptual, methodological and terminological, that is, qualitative identity of the Greater Serbian project, most of which was preserved unchanged also in the 21st century, - in spite of the immense heterogeneous changes in the entire world. The central characters are clearly differentiated - the aggressor and the victim, and the legal and political lack of objectivity of the constructions about the "civil war" and "balance of guilt", by which different interest groups try to place a strain on the Croatian future, are clearly shown. Readers, researchers, Government bodies in the Republic of Croatia and The Hague Tribunal can now find in one place a huge number of extremely useful data and references to authentic documents, with which the author gives, in form of a book, an expert, logical and easy-to-consult contribution to the understanding of the Greater Serbian ideology and practice at the end of the 20th century. For the first time documents are presented - from the preparation and implementation of the so-called "tree trunk" revolution [the Serbian blockade of the roads around Knin in 1990], the activities of the military and civilian occupational authorities, their widespread connection with similar processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina - to the connection with the source of all this evil, which could be found and can still be found in the institutions and the elites in the States "in the territory of the former Yugoslavia". Heavenly Serbia in Croatia does not limit itself in establishing the genesis and sequence of events in Croatia's recent past, but it rather shows, on the basis of authentic documents, how a community which is not familiar with its own past is condemned to its repetition. The author publishes documents from which it is evident that the systematic falsifying of the facts and interpretations of the past Greater Serbian armed aggression, among other things, had the purpose of ideological, political and staff amnesty of the aggressor, so that they would be established again in the institutions of the Croatian state and Croatian society with those same goals, staff and rhetor

To understand Serbian nationalism requires profound attention to history and careful analysis. Cohen accomplishes both through years of studying primary sources never before translated, focusing on World War II and uncovering the foundations of ethnic cleansing. He argues that the Serbs collaborated with the Nazis in contrast to later Serbian rhetoric that claimed the Serbs were victims, "the thirteenth tribe of Israel." This official duplicity veiled the true objectives of the government to create an ethnically pure homeland. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Why did Yugoslavia fall apart? Was its violent demise inevitable? Did its population simply fall victim to the lure of nationalism? How did this multinational state survive for so long, and where do we situate the short life of Yugoslavia in the long history of Europe in the twentieth century? A History of Yugoslavia provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive synthesis of the political, cultural, social, and economic life of Yugoslavia—from its nineteenth-century South Slavic origins to the bloody demise of the multinational state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Calic takes a fresh and innovative look at the colorful, multifaceted, and complex history of Yugoslavia, emphasizing major social, economic, and intellectual changes from the turn of the twentieth century and the transition to modern industrialized mass society. She traces the origins of ethnic, religious, and cultural divisions, applying the latest social science approaches, and drawing on the breadth of recent state-of-the-art literature, to present a balanced interpretation of events that takes into account the differing perceptions and interests of the actors involved. Uniquely, Calic frames the history of Yugoslavia for readers as an essentially open-ended process, undertaken from a variety of different regional perspectives with varied composite agenda. She shuns traditional, deterministic explanations that notorious Balkan hatreds or any other kind of exceptionalism are to blame for Yugoslavia’s demise, and along the way she highlights the agency of twentieth-century modern mass society in the politicization of differences. While analyzing nuanced political and social-economic processes, Calic describes the experiences and emotions of ordinary people in a vivid way. As a result, her groundbreaking work provides scholars and learned readers alike with an accessible, trenchant, and authoritative introduction to Yugoslavia's complex history.

This second edition updates the account and follows Croatia's progress to democracy since the death of President Franjo Tudjman."--BOOK JACKET.

Balkan Holocausts? compares and contrasts Serbian and Croatian propaganda from 1986 to 1999, analyzing each group's contemporary interpretations of history and current events. It offers a detailed discussion of holocaust imagery and the history of victim-centered writing in nationalism theory, including the links between the comparative genocide debate, the so-called holocaust industry, and Serbian and Croatian nationalism. No studies on Yugoslavia have thus far devoted significant space to such analysis.

The Bridge Betrayed reveals the crucial role of the religious mythology of Kosovo in the destruction of Yugoslavia and the genocide in Bosnia. A new preface discusses the deepening crisis in Kosovo - the epicenter of that mythology.