Der Mythos von den barbarischen Serben und seine Folgen

Abstract

The example of the Balkans and the Serbs serves to demonstrate how a people who had often been admired for their courage and independent cultural aspirations became – within Europe and in a relatively short period of time – a “nation of villains, thieves and murderers”. Moreover, this artificially created image would be employed for another century to somehow justify everything that was done to the Serbian population during two world wars and the Balkan wars at the end of the twentieth century. This contribution outlines how the Serbian people were turned into a barbarian nation by way of published opinion during the late Habsburg monarchy and how the small Kingdom of Serbia was stylized into a “villainous state” and “hereditary enemy”, its sheer existence apparently endangering the survival of the large multi-national state.