Comprehending the Сoncept of Сulture War in Serbian Сultures Studies, Philosophy of Culture and Literature
Authors:   Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tsibizova Irina M. 
Published: April 2023

The theme of culture wars connected with the preserving of national identity and mentality’s especially actual for Serbia which applies for the role of the bridge between West and East. The term of culture war was coined by R. Virchow for the definition of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s struggle against the catholic clergy. After the use of the notion by the sociologist J. Hunter and politician P. Buchahan the concept gained an unusual popularity among the researches. The origins of the Serbian culture wars are connected to the fight for national independency and either the Russian or the Western mainly to Habsburg Empire orientation. The J. Raich’s Catechism’s viewed as one of the important victories in culture war. These wars are understood as a violent conflict between the carriers of opposing ideas, definitions and representations within a single cultural pattern or between the representatives of such different ones. In the radical conflicts the “killer identity” (Amin Maalouf) is born. The culture wars often precede the real ones which destroy the culture. The National Revival inspired by the spiritual leader of the First Serbian insurrection Dosifey Obradovic, the unsuccessful attempt to introduce a single Serbo-Croatian language, the Yugoslav model, created in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia in the transition period, the communist stage associated with changes in society after the Second World War, the denial of national tradition and open hatred for the Serbian one as such, the period after 2000, marked by abuses of privatization, the ruin of the economy, the uncritical definition of Serbia as the Western Balkans, the euphemistic understanding of the period as a transition to democracy, covering the restoration of neoliberal capitalism and sabotage of the “democratic authorities” of the serious study of national culture, the war over the school curriculum of teaching history, language and literature, challenging the value of outstanding literary works as well as the values of national identity are considered as milestones of the culture was in Serbia. The participants of the culture wars are divided into globalists oriented to the West and the traditionalists or the conservatives, who tries not only to develop a concept of Serbian national identity, but also to maintain it. K. Atanasievich and V. Dvornikovich have contributed greatly to its development. The paper highlights a negative impact of pro-Western elites not only on national identity, but also on the country`s future. The consolidation of society around Patriarch Pavel showed the relevance of Orthodoxy, as well as of Kosovo and Metohija, for the Serbian national identity. The planned Euro-pride in Belgrade is perceived as a threat to the latter. Another threat is the canonization of the Quisling Croatian bishop Alozij Stepinets and the presentation of the Ustashe children's camps Sisak and Yastrebarsko as sanatoriums for the “treatment” of Serbian orphans. A developed concept of national identity is therefore needed to win the culture war.