Religious Wars? Southern Slavs’ Orthodox Memory of the Balkan and World Wars

Abstract

In the context of the Balkan Wars and following the First World War, the veneration of old religious lieux de memoire changed, for example with regard to Kliment Ohridski, Sveti Sava, Cyril and Methodius, and the Kosovo myth. Within the framework of Serbian and Bulgarian national movements, these memory sites had become important carriers of secular identities or visions of modernity during the nineteenth century, although initially their traditional veneration had been—in the cases of Cyril and Methodius—to a great degree Slavonic, or transnational. During the Balkan Wars and the World War, these discourses of remembrance became militarized and relevant means for the mobilization of the masses. They were used to legitimize territorial claims and military action against neighbors with religious fervor and nationalized historic narratives.