NATION, SERBS & NATIONALISM

Svetosavlje as Enlightened Nationalism

(The text that follows is a drastically shortened and amended version of a talk given by the author on the topic of Svetosavlje as enlightened nationalism. The talk was given on the St. Sava Day to the members and guests of the slava, at the Free Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church St. Sava, in New York City)

By Lidija Lukic, Ph.D.

Princeton, New Jersey

In his recent Christmas greeting, His Holiness, Serbian Patriarch Pavle speaks about different times in the lives of individuals, as well as in the lives of peoples. It seems to me that one would be hard-pressed to think of a better starting point for a discussion about Svetosavlje today than the contrast he gives between a time of death we leave behind and a time of life and work yet to come.

Where to, Serbia, in this time of reconstruction? My intention here is to contribute to the possible answers by considering the problem of the alleged and the actual Serbian nationalism. Such discussion should be useful in at least two respects: It should point the way for the survival in the world today of a people who value their sense of national identity, as well as offer an interpretation of that famous term, so often used among Serbs and so little understood, "Svetosavlje."

It is almost impossible to live as a person of Serbian origin in the United States today and not to be aware that the term "nationalism" is considered one of the most pejorative words of the political jargon used in the U.S. press, media, even the academic circles. In the last ten years, this noun has joined the panoply of the most hateful "isms" of political discussion, joining ranks of communism, nazism, fascism, etc. This state of affairs represents a real problem for current, as well as future relations between Serbia and the U.S., simply because nationalism is as unacceptable to the dominant American cultural circles as it is, I believe, natural to the majority of Serbian people.

From the American point of view, the case in point is a type of society that looks down on everyone and everything that does not belong to the most numerous ethnic group of that society. From the Serbian point of view, the case in point is a sense of belonging to a unique extended family - and every nation is a unique family - a family that encompasses not only all those related through family ties in the broadest sense of ethnic family at a given point in time, but all the ancestors and all the progeny of this ethnic family whose experiences make up the history, as well as the future of a people.

Since current circumstances necessitate a significant cooperation between Serbia and the U.S., achieving a certain agreement between the two outlooks regarding this unavoidable aspect of Serbian mentality would be extremely useful. I consider the task of making our national feeling intelligible and acceptable to the West, and especially to this country, one of the most important for Serbs today. In difficulty, such task is comparable to the grave need that we differentiate the positive from the negative in our national feeling ourselves, that we become clear regarding what aspects of that feeling are acceptable and, even, beautiful to us as human beings, and what ugly tendencies may be hidden in it, how, unenlightened, the feeling may lead to sinister ideology and misdeeds (as has often happened during the tragic years under Milosevic...). In this distinction, I believe, lies our answer to the Western world. How so? Precisely because one form of what we may call good-natured, constructive, even enlightened nationalism represents a valuable contribution to the general search for a better human society.

Serbia and the U.S.: On the Opposite Sides of the Idea of National States?

It is one thing to talk about the idea of common historical experience to the Europeans, and quite a different thing to have such a discussion with Americans. The American concept of that which is expressed with the word "nation" is none other than the concept of a total population of a country, regardless of the ethnicity of its inhabitants. In our sense of the word "nation", on the other hand, the U.S. is a country not of one, but of many nations. On the other side of the ocean, we have examples of much older nation-states, where the very existence of a country presupposes a common life, work and struggle through history of a specific ethnic group. Serbia, like most other European lands, exemplifies this model.

The existence of both models of society in and of itself is positive, since each has its own advantages, just as neither has fatal shortcomings that characterize only its specific organisation. It is important to remember, for instance, that the so-called "civil society" - a society where the rights and freedoms of a11 the citizens regardless of their ethnic origin are guaranteed by the constitution - stands in accord with the idea of a nation-state. Civil society concerns the domestic policy of a country and in no way precludes a national policy of that country as a whole that is based on the goals of aspirations of the numerically dominant ethnic group. For example: According to the model of such a national state, it is a duty of every regime in Belgrade to practice international policy with the goal of advancing the welfare of the Serbian population on all the territories of which that population has been historically present. Such care for everything Serbian would be perfectly consistent with the domestic policy of respect for all the civil rights and liberties of every individual citizen. And the converse: Dictatorship of one group of people of any ethnicity need not be alien to an anational society, regardless of its ethnic variety. The only question could be who grabbed the power and how they are misusing it...

A negative aspect of the current state of affairs is the American opposition to the very idea of a state based on ethnicity in the above sense, an opposition that has come to characterize the new American "globalism." Still, it is interesting to note that, believe it or not, at least one form of nationalism is not alien even to current American social ideology!

What I have in mind is the ever-popular social value of pluralism. This is a matter of valuing a society, even the whole world, that is conceived not as a melting pot, but as a mosaic of sorts. The U.S. is rather proud of its capacity to enable the existence and the prosperity of many different ethnic, cultural and religious groups...

For such a variety to exist, however, it is necessary that there be not only tolerance toward the differences of others and the legal system that ensures the welfare of all, but another, rarely mentioned condition. That necessary condition is care about one's own! Consider: If we want a truly pluralist society, one that resembles a mosaic, rather than a shapeless maps, care about the quality, color and intensity of every individual tile in the mosaic is necessary. Without such guardianship over the distinct components of a society, that society will not be genuinely pluralistic. The preservation and cultivation of specific cultural environments, on the other hand, will be conducted most efficiently (i.e. relatively well, fast and inexpensively) if the guardians and cultivators originate from that very environment, since we are dealing with the matters of knowledge, love and, thus, commitment with which the guardians will handle their work. Consider: Does it pay more to entrust the care of the Mexican community to people of Mexican, or of Swedish national origin?

If we expand this picture of a mosaic to the world as a whole, and contrary to the threat of the conformist version of globalism, we get the same picture of a mosaic of individual ethnic families as guardians of their own heritage. Here, then, is an outline for a sort of positive nationalism!

What principles illustrated by the life of St. Sava, then, may serve as principles of the enlightened nationalism? To what road toward general values of life in society does this guardianship-model of nationalism Serbs call simply "Svetosavlje" point us?

First Principle : There is no happiness of an individuals without the happiness of the people to which he belongs

Why did a prince need to take monastic vows, instead of enjoying the privileges of his station? Why did a monk need to work so hard for the state and church of his people, to spend decades of his life in Serbia, or on the roads between Serbia, Mount Athos and Constantinople, to reconcile his brothers, the princes, to build Christian temples, literacy and spirituality for and of Serbs? Because he believed that, neither a prince nor a monk will have lived fully if they did not live, too, for the good of their people.

Second Principle: A people leaves its own mark on every institution to which it belongs

Why was St.Sava not content to be a member of the brotherhood of monastery Vatoped that took him in, for good? To what end his insistence with the very Emperor Aleksey III to take over the administration of monastery Chilandar, together with his father, St. Simeon? To what end his years of work on giving the Serbian Orthodox Church full administrative independence, the independence even from the Patriarch in Constantinople? Probably because the saint did not want to live either as a non-Christian Serb, nor as a Christian non-Serb, thinking, perhaps, "I will give the seal of my own national spirit to Orthodoxy itself."

Third Principle: Exchange your own experiences with those of others in order to live and grow

It is very important that the greatest builder of the Serbian nation, St.Sava, lived the life of a man of the world. It is as if he always understood this truth, that building one's own nation presupposes learning from other nations. For how else does a nation leave its mark on lives of nations, if it has not first become a part of that life itself? In this sense, the second and the third principle are at odds with each other. Accordingly, St.Sava did thought nothing of writing the book of church canon for both Chilandar and Kareya in the fashion of the book of canon of the Constantinople's Church of the Holy Mother Evergetide; nor as his hagiographer Domentian writer, to copy "many books of laws (...) his (...) church needed"* while a guest at the monastery Philocalus in Constantinople. Indeed: How else could the saint lead the Serbs to join the host, of nations, worldly, Christian and orthodox?

Fourth Principle: Befriend your people to other peoples

Thanks to his tireless diplomatic work and thanks to his personal prestige, in his lifetime St.Sava represented a living bond between the Nemanjic Serbia and the rest of the Balkan Peninsula. After his death, celebrated as a saint from Greece to Russia, St.Sava represents the brightest memento of Serbian contribution to the world up to our times.

Fifth Principle: Care about your people, wherever they live

On the topic of St.Sava's care for his people, let us bear witness to his building of Serbian orthodox dioceses on all the borders of Serbian lands of those days: Diocese of Zeta, Hum, Dabrobosna, Moravice, Budim, Lipljani... but also, of these in the many hearts of Serbia - Zica, Toplice, Ras, Prizren... Where it was possible, at a given point in history, to achieve territorial unity of the Serbian state, Nemanjicis did it... Wherever the political conditions threatened to separate Serbian population from its core, St.Sava did his utmost to leave to that population its own national and religious heritage.

A lesson for us all: Wherever it is possible to achieve and maintain territorial integrity of Serbian lands, let us never give them up! Where current political circumstances do not permit "hard borders" in favor of the Serbian population, let us always take care of our people by maintaining with it and in its name before the world all peaceful ties (religious, cultural, political, economic) the world community permits us.

And so, returning to the thought that the tradition of Svetosavlje offers an excellent example of enlightened nationalism, we hope that it will serve as an example of the way to affirm and preserve an aspect of human society that is, as a value, American as well as Serbian.

Lidija Lukic, Ph.D.

Princeton, New Jersey

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The source of this quote as well as of facts about the life of St. Sava used in this text is the book The Holy Serbs by Slobodan Mileusnic, and The Life of St. Sava by bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic.