source: pressonline.rs |
The Nazis planned to rename the city Prinz-Eugenstadt, after the
great Austrian general who conquered Belgrade from Turks in 1717. Field
Marshall von Mackensen erected a monument to the Serbian defenders of Belgrade
in 1915, famously remarking that the German imperial troops “fought against an army that we have heard
about only in fairy tales." Hitler had to bomb Belgrade into ashes
to defeat its fighting spirit, which he didn’t have to do with any major city
in Europe west of Russia. Even the American imperial war machine had to go through
Belgrade en route to furthering its imperialist goals. Belgrade bowed to no one.
That was then. Things have changed. Looking
down from Jannah, Suleiman, the magnificent destroyer of Belgrade, must be having
second thoughts about the pleasures received from the seventy-two virgins whose
company he has been deservedly enjoying since 1566. In Serbia of all places, his
magnificence is adored today by enough women to swap rosters of seventy-two
ever y day. Alright, they won’t all be virgins, he’d have to survive a plump,
graying, but eager suburban housewife here and there, but the point is clear: in
Belgrade and in Serbia, Suleiman may be looking at a new Jannah. Belgrade’s Prva
Srpska television station, owned by a Greek, Minos Kyriakou of Antenna
Group, basically invited the imperial legacy of the Ottoman Sultan back into
Serbia by buying the rights to broadcast Magnificent
Century (Muhteşem yüzyıl), the Turkish historical soap opera based on
the more romanticized elements of his life. According to Prva Srpska press
release of February 28, the second episode of this show of reportedly questionable
artistic quality was seen by over 1.7 million viewers in Serbia of little more
than 7 million people. I won’t even touch the business side of this phenomenon,
other than noting that the previous Turkish soap opera, “When leaves fall,” reaped
such success that the cast of the series was invited to Serbia for a special
recognition. Ok, Serbs did the same for certain Latino soap opera stars too,
and although I find all such adulation tasteless and even repugnant, my
attitude towards the popular infatuation with this particular show and its main
character has less to do with my general views of the “bread-and-games”
mentality than with my incredulity over the fact that the Serbian cultural
consciousness is so depraved that an Ottoman sultan can be seen as some form of
popular hero in Serbia. According to internet commentary coming out of Serbia, not
only that middle-aged men and women curb the physiological instincts of breathing
and blinking when the show is about to come on, but Serbian boys have begun
emulating this “hero” as theirs.
source: kibris1974.com |
This is
not just any soap opera, nor is this just any historical character. Suleiman was
the greatest ruler of the Ottoman Empire, which kept the Serbian people prisoners
for four centuries. Suleiman embodied the Ottoman oppression over the Serb
Christians that was unparalleled in the Serbian history, in its duration and in
its effects. The case of deportation of the Belgrade Serbs in 1521 was not an
exception, it was a norm. Any adoration of Suleiman by the Serbs, even in such
a seemingly innocent way as the popularizing of a soap opera anchored by his fictional
characterization can be understood as, means a dehumanizing lack of
self-respect. Respecting Suleiman as a great historical figure and understanding
his role in the Ottoman, European and Serbian history objectively is one thing.
But creating a popular fantasy out of his characterization and associating a
feeling of joyful reverence with a depiction of Suleiman the man and the sultan
is abhorrent, self-demeaning and ultimately dehumanizing.
How else could
I characterize the sentiment in which victims celebrate the image of their
oppressor? Even if he was the most benevolent emperor, which he apparently was
not, he was still an occupier and his empire was still a foreign power, thus
under all circumstances manifestly hostile to the interest of the Serbian
people who wanted to preserve their culture and identity. What Suleiman’s
empire brought to the Serbs were the utter economic and cultural devastation, the
national and personal humiliation and the isolation from the European culture
the Serbs were integral participants in until the Ottoman conquest. The Ottoman
Empire of Suleiman, his ancestors and his descendants brought a religious
divide that still tears at the heart of the Serbian nation and is a cause of
horrific fratricidal conflicts; it brought devshirme, or “the blood tax,”
that saw some of the most promising and capable young Serbs ripped away from
their mothers’ clutching arms and ruthlessly groomed for the imperial service,
only to come back as tormenters of their own brethren. Even the rare examples
of acemi oglan, the blood tax recruits, who remembered and respected their
roots, like Mehmed-pasha Sokolović, could not alleviate the justified feeling of
the dehumanizing devastation this practice had caused to the Serbian people.
The primae noctis privilege, often invoked by the Ottoman lords of Turkish
and Serbian ancestry alike, abridged only by a threat or an execution of
violence on the part of Serbian humiliated males, left an even deeper wound in
the Serbian psyche.
Brother Serb,
would you celebrate Suleiman if he came to snatch your teenage daughter from
your home and take her to his harem? Would you idolize Suleiman’s TV characterization
if you had to cripple your infant son so Suleiman’s children-snatchers would find
him unfit? Would you be exhilarated by Suleiman’s greatness if it was you who
was sent by a Suleiman’s noble to “walk the shoes” while he ravaged your wife? Well,
you are a Serb today because your ancestors fought to preserve their identity, their
culture and their honor by clearly distinguishing theirs from the foreign, the
victimized from the villains, the oppressed from the tyrannical… Not all the
Serbs have. What do we call those now?
I really
do not care how Suleiman is depicted in the Turkish popular culture. He was a great
Turk and as the Serbs should celebrate Tsar Dušan, so should the Turks celebrate
whomever they respect. But for the Serbs to celebrate heroes of their oppressors
is beyond comprehension and beyond sanity. How low can the Serbian self-esteem
stoop? Seemingly, there is no rock bottom. How could the free people celebrate their
conqueror and a tyrant would probably be best answered by sociologists.
source: zimbio.com |
Yes, I
have a grievance against Prva Srpska. Every self-respecting Serb should feel
aggrieved. But judging from the ratings of the show, there are not that many
self-respecting Serbs around anymore. The soft power of the renewed Turkish
expansionism is slowly, but surely, infiltrating the Serbian society and that
fact is way more alarming and dangerous than a Serb nationalist somewhere having
an opinion on the Serbian Jannah of Suleiman the Magnificent and the Serbian depravity.
Hollywood creations made most of the world sincerely sympathize with the
American imperialist manifestations by adapting them to the fates of
individuals portrayed as heroes anyone could sympathize with. Yes, you have
rooted for John Rambo to kill all the Vietnamese defending their own villages
and families. Yes, you wanted Colonel James Braddock to find and save the “missing
in action.” Yes, such reduction of the struggle between the good and the evil
to the individual and the personal level did brainwash masses into
subconsciously cheering on the underdog Rocky Balboa against the dehumanized Ivan
Drago. Whatever the way and whoever the characters, the soft power of Hollywood
ultimately paved the helipads for the menacing Black Hawks to land. Prva Srpska
Television (which translates as the First Serbian Television), for
reasons known to its owners and editors, wants the Serbian public to idolize
Suleiman, the greatest embodiment of the former Turkish glory. Its translators
did not translate the title of the series, Magnificent Century, correctly,
or directly. In Serbian, the title would translate as Veličanstveni vek,
yet, as adapted to the Serbian audience, it actually carries the sultan's
name and the moniker, Sulejman Veličanstveni.
Remember, the Turks did not leave the Serbian
lands, they were expelled by the force of Serbian arms. The fact that their expansionist power
is soft now and that the bedazzled Serbs innocently sympathize with Suleiman
and his Russian convert khatun, Hurem, means only that we can reasonably expect
to ultimately hear the roar of tanks waving the star and crescent on the red
cloth and to see them rolling down the roads paved by the agents of the soft
power, such as Prva Srpska. The difference between the soft and the hard power
can be quite unnoticeable and deceiving, quite amorphous, especially to the
unconscious Serb whose eyes are glued to the television screen and fixated on
the unreal tribulations of fictional people. In 1521, Suleiman surrounded and
attacked Belgrade from Zemun, his men charged the walls of the fortress repeatedly,
eventually overwhelming the Serb defenders, then they ethnically cleansed the
city. The 2012 version of Suleiman is a soft power paratrooper who aims to cleanse
the consciousness of proverbially unsuspecting Serbs of any self-respect,
dignity or self-awareness, after which the keys to the city will be given to
him without struggle. And of course, as Suleiman promised in the show, "the Turks won't harm those that beg for mercy."