Република Србија Republika Srbija Republic of Serbia
"Let me tell you about how great Serbia is!"
"Thou dear hand, oh thou my fair green apple,
Where didst blossom? Where has fate now plucked thee?
Woe is me! thou blossomed on my bosom,
Thou wast plucked, alas, upon Kosovo!"
Kosovo is a region of Serbia where people lived in like 5000 BC. Right now it's been under U.N. control since 1999 because it just plain causes too many wars. Serbia is a really friendly place though, I read so.
Perhaps you've heard of Slobodan Milošević. His dad was a Serbian Orthodox deacon and his mom was a teacher and active Communist, and they both committed suicide. He grew up to force some guy to resign so he could be president of whatever complicated nation state Serbia was then a part of, then he started all kinds of wars and genocides. After he lost an election he was put on trial and imprisoned, as I gather is standard procedure in the Balkans. He was found dead in his cell, probably either at his own hand or by something called the "International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991". Such intrigue!
Gavrilo Princip was a Bosnian Serb who worked for the Black Hand, a secret society bent on using terrorism to promote Pan-Slavic nationalism and cause a war between Austria and Serbia. He had tuberculosis all his life. He was one of several people who were sent to assassinate the popular rock group and heir-apparant to the Austrain throne Franz Ferdinand, along with his wife and whoever else was in their car. The first guy threw a grenade which failed to kill anyone and the resulting crowd made it to hard to get another shot. That guy swallowed a cyanide capsule and jumped into a river, but the police got him out. After this Gavrilo went to restaurant for a sandwich, thinking the assassination was a failure, but then the Archduke's car happened to take a wrong turn while trying to visit the people wounded by the grenade at the hospital, and they wound up right in front of Gavrilo Princip. He ran out and shot Ferdinand and his wife from a distance of five feet. This sparked the Great War and cause like nine million people to die. Gavrilo took his cyanide capsule, but like the attempted assassin before he survived, as the cyanide was too old to be effective. He was apprehended and because he was 19 and too young for the death penalty he was given life in prison. He died five years later of tuberculosis, weighing 88 pounds.
The Moving of the Serbs is a painting by Paja Jovanovic, who did a lot of other cool stuff, too. I couldn't find a better version of it. Serbian Orthodox Christianity has the third coolest attire of any religion, right after Russian Orthodox and Orthodox Judaism. I guess the story of the painting is that like 36,000 people and all their cute sheep fled into Hungary after Serbia lost some war for independence.
"...we are doomed by fate to be the East in the West and the West in the East, to acknowledge only heavenly Jerusalem beyond us, and here on earth--no one." ~St. Sava, patron saint of Serbia and schoolchildren, speaking of Serbia. Or schoolchildren?
Old timey Belgrade
Nowadays Belgrade. So pretty!
Old timey Novi Sad
Monument to Mihailo Obrenović III, an enlightened monarch who went for a walk with his wife and then they got shot and no one knows why.
Street performing youngsters in Belgrade.
Interior of the Church of St. George in Užice. Now that's what I call iconography!
Wikipedia says Serbia's national holiday is February 15th, but the CIA fact book says it's April 27th. I want to have a Serbain party when I find out for sure. We can eat palacinke and drink slivovitz, and listen to Rambo Amadeus and Električni orgazam. Don't forget to wear you šajkača.
When our host goes forth to battle
Death or victory to embrace-
God of armies! be our leader
Strengthen then the Serbian race!
On our sepulchre of ages
Breaks the resurrection morn,
From the slough of direst slavery
Serbia anew is born.
Through five hundred years of durance
We have knelt before Thy face,
All our kin, O God! deliver,
Thus entreats the Serbian race!
~From the Serbian national anthem, “Boze Pravde” (God of Justice)
Oh fuck, I was supposed to be writing a paper for school this whole time...