THERE IS A LAND IN THE HEART OF EUROPE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SLAVIC UNION, SLAVIC LEAGUE, THE LEAGUE OF THE SLAVIC NATIONS, СЛАВЯНСКАЯ УНIЯ - СЛАВЯНСКИ СOЮЗ, SLAVENSKA UNIJA – SLAVENSKI SAVEZ, SLAVENSKA LIGA, СЛАВЯНСКИ СЪЮЗ – СЪЮЗ НА СЛАВЯНСКИТЕ НАРОДИ, СЪЮЗ НА СЛАВЯНСКИТЕ ДРЖАВИ, SLOVANSKA UNIÉ – SLOVANSKÝ SVAZ, SŁOWJANSKA UNIJA, SŁOWJANSKA LIGA, СЛОВЕНСКА УНИЈА – СЛОВЕНСКИ СОЈУЗ, UNIA SLOWIAŃSKA – ZVĄZEK SLOWIAŃSKI, СЛАВЯНСКИЙ СОЮЗ – СОЮЗ СЛАВЯНСКИХ НАРОДОВ,  СОЮЗ СЛАВЯНСКИХ ДЕРЖАВ, СЛОВЕНСКА УНИЈА - СЛОВЕНСКИ САВЕЗ – SLOVENSKA UNIJA, СЛОВЕНСКА ЛИГА, SLOVENSKA LIGA, LIGA SLAVENSKIH NARODA, LIGA SLAVENSKIH DRŽAVA, SLOVANSKÁ UNIÁ – SLOVANSKÝ ZVÄZ, SLOVANSKA UNIA – SLOVANSKA ZVEZA, СЛАВЯНСКА УНIА – СЛАВЯНСКИ СОЮЗ, СЛАВЯНСКАЯ ЛИГА..

 

 

 

SLAVIC ELEMENT

PHENOMENON

OF THE WORD

S L A V I A

AND VARIATION BY THE THEME

 

The word SLAVIA is something that has existed for a very long time, but still even for Slavic people it sounds artificial.

 

There is one interesting thing about the word Yugoslavia in my mind, or at least that is what we understand when we hear that name.The first time we heard this name was in 1917 or 1918.

                                   YUGOSLAVIA

Or JUGOSLAVIJA Croatian or                 or ЈУГОСЛАВИЈА Serbian or

                (JUGOSLAVIA)         ‘west’ Latin version            (ЈУГОСЛАВИА)    ‘east’ Cyrilic version

 

The name Yugoslavia, or Jugoslavija in my mother tongue, always sounded like an artificial word, unusual for the “Slavic ear”. However, that was the name of the country in which I was born,  and I recognized it as and considered it the name of my homeland.

 

In a simple translation of this word Jugoslavija it means exactly South Slavia, JUGO- south, and SLAVIJA – Slavia. So, the name of the State which was established in 1918 was exactly SouthSlavia. We also recognized this new state as the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. This country or union of these Slavic Balcanic states was internationally recognized at that time. Also, in 1943, Josip Broz Tito with his partisans established a new country which got an official name, FNRJ  (Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia). These abbreviations FNR or NR changed a few times in the course of history before we got the official name at the early 70’s: SFRJ – Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.

As we can see, this term was changed many times, but one word remained the same, Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavian citizens usually called this country New Yugoslavia - NOVA JUGOSLAVIJA, the old one, Old Yugoslavia - STARA JUGOSLAVIJA, was the one established in 1918. The New Yugoslavia was also recognized by the whole world. And because of that to me it sounds a bit strange that the whole world did not recognize the same country by the same name in 1992, but they supported the division of the country. However, I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about this very original name Yugoslavia. I always used to ask myself where this original name came from. How can it be possible that it existed for 70 years, but today it has lost the meaning?

 

There is also one interesting thing about the national anthem of Yugoslavia. The name is O SLAVS – HEJ SLAVENI in Croatian, Western or Latin version, or ХЕЈ СЛОВЕНИ in Serbian or east Cyrilic version. The words were written by Samuel Tomašik, composed (by unknown) in the mid 19th century as an anthem for the Slavonic movement. The anthem melody is nearly the same as that in Poland.

 

The name of the country, anthem etc. resembled the country of the South Slavs. Even when living in Yugoslavia I never noticed that the concept of South Slavs was important. Of the whole concept we only have the name of the country. It was also a communistic country during that time, and the socialist movement was more important than any kind of Slavism. The name of the official language in Yugoslavia was Serbo-Croatian or Croatian-Serbian, SRPSKOHRVATSKI – HRVATSKOSRPSKI or СРПСКОХРВАТСКИ – ХРВАТСКОСРПСКИ. There was bilingualism in Slovenia and Macedonia and also in the two autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina in the Republic of Serbia. Today the international community has recognized one new language, the Bosnian BOSANSKI. For me, as someone who lived in Bosnia for 20 years, it is very difficult to call my mother tongue by a new name. As a Croat from Bosnia I can call my language just the Croatian language, but when I lived in Bosnia at the time, I called this language Serbo-Croatian, and it sounds a little bit strange to me that I call that language even today by the name of Croatian.

 

It seems that the names of the same language have been changing all the time in a short historical period. If we talk about citizenship in the time of the ‘last’ Yugoslavia, there were actually two citizenships, the official citizenship of Yugoslavia and the automatic citizenship of the socialistic state in which you were born. Today there have been quite a lot of changes also in that area.

 

It is very interesting that the Bosnian Muslims did not have the right to declare themselves as anything else but Serbs or Croats before 1992, which was logic because they are Serbs or Croats, who just took a different religion 500 years ago. It was interesting that nobody in Bosnia could declare themselves as, for example, a Bosnian or something similar along the line. It also seems very strange to me that the International Community has recognized a new-old nationality, or almost a "nation", the BOSNIACS, in the original Serbo-Croatian language BOŠNJACI, and this term is today the exact official name of the same South Slavic people, of the same Serbs and Croats, who just took a different religion 500 years ago, when the Ottomans occupied Bosnia. We can deduct of course that the Bosniacs belong to the same ethnic tree as the Serbs and the Croats.

 

In that time the part of Serbs and Croats already took a different religion, going from pantheism to the monotheism. They became Bogomils (BOGUMILI) in one part of Herzegovina.

Bogomilism is the Gnostic dualistic sect, the synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and the local Slavonic Church reform movement in Bulgaria and Herzegovina between 950 and 1396 and in the Byzantine Empire between 1018 and 1186.

They established their own faith at that time, and they were very strong especially in Bulgaria and in one part of Herzegovina. Because of that they were not recognized by any church, orthodox or catholic, and most of them turned to Islam when the Ottomans came, but kept their Slavic language and roots. Eventhough they changed religion three times from Pantheism through Bogumilism to Islam, they did not, of course, become anything else than Serbs or Croats, South Slavs or at least, let’s say, citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For all that time and during all those historical changes all of them spoke the same language.

 

Some of these same people from Pantheism through Bogumilism to Islam became to be later Catholics or Orthodox, which means that an individual who became Catholic at that time, he or his descendants declare themselves today as Croats, and an

individual who became Orthodox at that time, he or his descendants declare themselves today as Serbs. At the same time all of them can declare themselves as citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the same time the Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina can automatically have citizenship of Croatia, because they declare themselves as Croats, and Serbs can automatically have citizenship of Serbia, because they declare themselves as Serbs, what they are anyway, of course.

This is a typical characteristic of our Slavic mentality, especially South Slavic mentality – fickle, inconstant and changeable, which helped conquerors during history to keep us in their power.

 

That was a good moment for the Turks to practice the politics of Divide et impera, that means one people against itself, Slavs against Slavs. And as we can see, that praxis has continued even till today, especially between the South Slavs. Through all these happenings and changes in the history there is always one thing that has stayed the same, the SLAVIC ELEMENT. In my opinion religion should not be the point of division in any case.

 

In my opinion SLAVENISM is a part of our identity and we should not lose it in the future.

 

If we look at the union of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, CZECHOSLOVAKIA – ČESKOSLOVENSKO, that was also some kind of union of Central European Slavs, which was quite logic, at least at that time, but they never got a name like WESTSLAVIA etc.

 

At one moment in history, the SORBS of LUSATIA believed they would be able to make a union with the Czechs and the Slovaks. If that had happened, then probably the Polish and Kashubians could have enjoyed the same union or made some kind of West Slavic Union, which, very possibly, could have been some kind of WESTSLAVIA, at least at that time. Maybe the Rusyns and Carpatho-Rusyns should take a better look at their own history.

 

Today we quite often notice that there are ideas concerning a union between the East Slavic peoples, Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, former Slavic states of USSR. One day they can start to use some kind of name such as EASTSLAVIA, or something similar, why not. The old and beautiful word SLAVIA gives a right and a possibility for something like that.

 

Like l already said, the SLAVIC ELEMENT is very much present, and it is one thing that has stayed the same.

 

SLAVIA, SLAVIC ELEMENT, SLAVENISM - this is something that has existed for a very long time, and today we only have to give these terms a right direction.

 

The right way to....  

LOVE PEACE and FREEDOM,

respecting the democratic value of today.

 

In that case we cannot miss.