In search of a democratic cultural “alternative”: Serbia's European heritage from Dositej Obradović to OTPOR

Abstract

Developments in Serbia's democratic consolidation over the past six years have been both ongoing and progressive. Yet the establishment of a widely shared and collectively accepted political culture that has departed from the ethnocentric and euroskeptic narratives of the Milošević era remains incomplete. Additionally, the failure by Serbian socio-political elites in appropriating alternative narratives of Serbian history and culture that demonstrate a tradition of shared values and identities with other European communities has stymied public acceptance of Serbia's European integration and public trust among its leaders. This paper argues that Serbian socio-political elites can appropriate narratives and symbols of Serbian collective identity that have been either sidelined or neglected by previously established ethnocentric narratives, and ascribe new systems of meaning and codes of behavior that qualify European liberal democratic values. I argue that a plentiful reservoir of democratic capital can be found in the histories of Serbian communities in Vojvodina over the past three centuries, and the urban cosmopolitanism of Belgrade from the late 1860s up to the present period.