Serbs In Australia

This title was first published in 2000: Although the main tragedy of the wars which first erupted in 1991 in former Yugoslavia lies within the Balkan region, the war's shadow is global in outreach. Using a mainly ethnographic approach, this is an exploration of how the Balkan wars have affected the everyday life and mental health in particular of Serbian immigrants and their families in Australia, and how they have responded to long-distance grief, devastation and dislocation. The work examines how the mass media has enabled migrants to see and feel the impact of events happening in their homeland more vividly than in any previous conflict and how the international consensus which blames the Serbs for perpetrating the wars has stigmatized this immigrant community. In doing so, the author, who is a mental health expert, deals with issues of globalization, fragmentation and adaptation of national and cultural identities, grief and alienation, and the effects of these on mental health and well-being.

Australian and New Zealand volunteers were already in Serbia, treating wounded Serbian soldiers and fighting a typhus epidemic, before the ANZACs landed at Gallipoli in 1915. The Gallipoli Campaign sealed Serbia’s fate, however, as Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria moved to secure a land supply corridor to Turkey through Serbia. Australians and New Zealanders accompanied the Serbian Army on a deadly retreat over wintry mountains to the Adriatic coast. When the fighting shifted to the Salonika or ‘Macedonian’ Front, many served there with the British Army, the Royal Flying Corps, two AIF units and six Royal Australian Navy destroyers in the Adriatic and Aegean Seas. Some died in action, others from disease. Several hundred doctors, nurses and orderlies treated the wounded and sick in an Australian-led volunteer hospital and in British and New Zealand Army hospitals. The author Miles Franklin was a medical orderly supporting the Serbian Army; her little-known memoir is quoted extensively in this book. Fifteen hundred Australians and New Zealanders served on this little known yet crucial battlefront. Now for the first time we have an engaging and comprehensive account of what they experienced and achieved in the Great War.

"Resthaven developed this publication to provide a perspective about Serbian people and their culture. It is based on the findings from our project and aims to serve as a guide for service providers to help them better understand the Serbian community in South Australia and assist them to deliver culturally appropriate services." -- p. 4.

Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse societies in the world today. From its ancient indigenous origins to British colonisation followed by waves of European then international migration in the twentieth century, the island continent is home to people from all over the globe. Each new wave of settlers has had a profound impact on Australian society and culture. The Australian People documents the dramatic history of Australian settlement and describes the rich ethnic and cultural inheritance of the nation through the contributions of its people. It is one of the largest reference works of its kind, with approximately 250 expert contributors and almost one million words. Illustrated in colour and black and white, the book is both a comprehensive encyclopedia and a survey of the controversial debates about citizenship and multiculturalism now that Australia has attained the centenary of its federation.

The history of Orthodox Christians in Australia is that of immigrant communities which, mostly for political and economic reasons, left their countries of origin in Eastern Europe and the Middle East from the nineteenth century. Since the mid-twentieth century large numbers of Eastern Orthodox have settled in Australia, chiefly Greeks, Russians, Serbs, Antiochians (from Syria and Lebanon), Romanians, Bulgarians, Ukrainians, Macedonians and Byelorussians. This book presents five Orthodox Churches in Australia: the Greek, the Russian, the Serbian, the Antiochian and the Romanian. Christine Chaillot is the author of numerous articles and books on the Oriental Churches in the fields of history, theology, and spirituality. She is Swiss and Orthodox (Patriarchate of Constantinople).