Having been born to Serbian parents, it’s hard for me to decide which word is most befitting Serbs as a nation. My choices are:
1. Docile
2. Decent
3. Chaste


Throughout the hundreds of years of Serbian presence on the Balkan Peninsula, there were foreign troops and wars. There were the armies of Alexander the Great 338 BC, about the same time Celtic tribes of Scordiacs kept the Northern Balkans. Serbian tribes were moving into a territory (former Yugoslavia) that was to be controlled by many foreign troops. The split of the Roman Empire took place precisely along the lines of Serbian lands leaving one Western half in today’s Croatia and the Eastern half (today’s Serbia) in Byzantine Empire. Oddly enough none of that land was ever considered Serbian in spite of the fact that the great majority of the population living there were Serbs. Only after the success of the Nemanjic Dynasty (12th century, with the success of Stefan Provovencani, Stefan Dusan) the foothills of today’s mountain Kopaonik became known as Raska and worked as a Serbian kingdom. On of the Nemanjic brothers (Rastko) took to obtaining independence for Serbian Orthodox church within the Byzantine empire and the request was granted from the Holy See in today’s Istanbul (Konstantinopolis in those days). In spite of the following military successes of Tsar Dusan who conquered much of today’s Macedonia, Northern Greece and Western Bulgaria, the Serbians suffered a major loss on June 28th 1389 at the Kosovo field battle against the Ottoman Turks. Some Southernmost provinces of Serbia and Macedonia obtained independence from the Turkish rule as late as 1912, it was a very long 500+ years. For all that time Serbians were at one war or another trying to free their people. Much of the early 20th century was nothing but wars, the biggest one being WW1, which ended with Serbia’s triumph over the powers of Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germans, while aided by France, Russia, England and in some modest number United States. During WW2 those same nations were allies again which proved the common idea and hold which liberty has had on all those nations of different ethnic and cultural background. All those common bonds were shattered by the mindless Clinton/Allbright lead aggression of NATO’s bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999.

Having been principal combatant in all the above listed wars, and present in many other wars, Serbian innate views of justice and liberty have traditionally outweighed all other proclivities, even urges for retribution and vengeance. Nowhere in the history of the world will you find examples of a defeated nation feeding the starving occupying forces as was the case numerous times in Serbia with the advancing Austro-Hungarian Armies.

Equally nowhere in history will you find that ONE STOLEN EGG given to a (downed and hidden) American pilot during WW2, lead to the German killing of 350 villagers as retribution.

Those are the reasons why I can’t choose the right word between the three I started with.

Iliya Pavlovich