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."
15 comments:
Simply ghastly. Yet at the tail end of 20+ years of demonization and brainwashing, it's a miracle there are still people who sneer at this cultural imperialism. So I wouldn't declare the Serbs quite dead - yet.
It just keeps getting worse doesn't it. I was appalled in 2010 to see people watching Turkish drama soap operas, and now this. Is it possible to be astonished, but not surprised?
There are two ways we can look at this. We can either:
A/ say that this sort of thing is the result of soft power, or
B/ that soft power is the result of some flaw in Serbdom
Because the very nature of soft power is that it is 'soft'. There is no force involved. This means Serbs have to accept it, and embrace it, whether consciously aware or not, in order for soft power to work. The point is that soft power only works when it is not rejected. And the Serbs did not reject this form of soft power. Can you imagine a TV show celebrating a Christian crusader airing in Saudi Arabia or Iran, or even Turkey? I cant. Those people would reject it almost instinctively.
So what is it about Serbs today, that makes them act like this? I wouldn't say it is because of 20+ years of soft power. I'd say soft power only worked in the first place because of an underlying reason which allowed soft power to take root at all.
It is historically true that Serbs always rebelled against 'hard power', whether it be armies of men of horseback, or foreign tanks or fighter jets, but I somehow can't see such a thing happening today. I can't imagine young Serbian men dropping their shitty airmaxies and nike prada, and going out to actively defend Serbia. Unless of coarse it football was involved. A parody of national pride.
I don't want to sound like a pessimist, and I always hope for the best for Serbs and will do my part to help Serbdom (even if it is infinitesimally small), but something in the Serbian soul is beginning to stink, as if something had died. Like a shell with a dead crab inside, and now other creatures are coming to claim the shell because its practically there for the taking.
It is a very sad situation, but I think we're deluding ourselves if we are going to be blaming soap operas for the decline of Serbdom. Something much more fundamental is going on.
It is true that some Serbs such as ourselves notice this, and we rebel against it like we rightfully should, but we are in the minority, and that is what I find most disturbing of all.
Serbs such as ourselves are swimming against the tide.
Its the chicken vs the egg issue. Which came first? Its like that moron in Belgrade called Tadic. We can blame him all we want (and I think we should), but at the same time we need to remember it was Serbs who supported his bullshit, it was Serbs who voted him into office (twice), and he is a Serb himself. Tadic is a symptom of a much deeper problem, just like this awful new TV show is a symptom. Neither are the cause.
Vultures, maggots and cockroaches only appear after in the later phases of a tragedy, if you see what I'm getting at.
Great article though.
It seems many of us are submitting to Stockholm syndrome...
See, I don't think it's conscious like that. I think it's the lack of consciousness. People are uneducated about their own, they do not care about anything but the superficial and the immediately useful. Is it sickness? Perhaps, but not of the Stockholm syndrome variety.
People who are bedazzled by Suleiman the character do not see a Turkish Sultan. They see a medieval superstar, and their thirst for fantasy combined with a lack of real education and a general unwillingness to think critically produced the state in which no one asks "hold on a sec, why are we so euphoric about a tyrant, an enemy of our ancestors?"
The Serbs do not try to empathize with Suleiman as their "captor." They do not see him as their former oppressor because they do not know anything about him and they do not care to find out. They are just oblivious. They are just watching the fantasy.
The problem is, they will start forming the image of Suleiman through this show. That's what the soft power consists of in this respect. The rock bottom of humiliation is not to take in such a character, but to endear an image of a Turkish Sultan to a Serb.
Of course, no one is blaming soap operas. What we watch and glorify shows what we've become. The reasons we've come to act this way are deeper, more complex and need to be examined and eradicated, with or without the help of Belgrade elites.
Yes, I'd have a law banning such TV series that portray a former oppressor in a positive light. But the reasons for people importing such creations should be looked at in a more serious way. I believe it is a national security question, considering Turkey's active engagement in the Serbian affairs on the side of Serbian enemies and its foreign policy designs in Southeast Europe.
Piece by piece, we have been chipped away at. Dead we are not, but the end of the 20th century has been our metastasis.
We can discuss whether Kosovo can be preserved, whether it should be preserved, whether the Serb Republic could be independent or not, how we can save Montenegro, whether it is more feasible to turn west or east, but with seemingly small things like this show being even allowed in Serbia, we see the depth of the treason the Serbian political and social elites have mired themselves in. It is as ghastly as it is ominous.
The more we watch it the more we become aware of the fact that the Turks are more Serbs, Greeks, Ukrainians ... than the Turks themselves. They, the Serbs, do know and remember who their oppressors were, but they also know that numerous were taken as slaves to Turkey and many were ancestors of today's Turks. They do not celebrate Suleiman, but only want to see how that part of history is shown. And of course, it is part of the history of Europe. That's all. But the cast and the screenplay are very good.
I would like to see the Serbian production houses, including TV stations like Prva TV that pay 300k euro for an interview with Dino Merlin, to produce series or films about the glories of Serbian history, not the history of oppressors. People will undoubtedly watch a love story, especially about a great man, but showing that particular great man in a positive light to Serbs demeans them. Imagine showing a movie about Hitler's conquests and romantic escapades in Israel. I would like to know if the Magnificent Century is being shown in Armenia. If it is, I'll shut my mouth.
People i think you are taking all this to silly lenghts,It's just a show-by your calculations no one in the world would watch anything else or on any language other than their own..
We are talking about economics as well,then why bother working with country that we had issues in the past,or worse-live in them and yet we have Serbian brightest wrking and being recognized all over the world..
More over-we are writing right now in foreign language,speaking of double standards,what kind of recovery we expect in Balkans then???
or how about traveling on vacation to Turkey,coast and all...
Hello All :)
I am a Türk from Turkey and I understand your worries but I don't think this tv show has any agenda as you think. It is not glorifying the past cause you cannot glorify it by showing killings and taking slaves.
@Anonymous
In a country where kids glorify a former conqueror because they see him as a romantic hero, but stories of their own national heroes do not get any cultural exposure, this is a problem.
Suleiman with agenda, shown in Turkey, is ok. Suleiman in Serbia, where there's never been a movie about Saint Sava, is alarming.
Do you think you may be reading too much into this?
It is a soap opera that will loose it's appeal after a while just like other turkish/latin soap operas.
History seems to be such an integral part of Serbs. You should focus on future and realize all Balkan people are very similar to outsiders. Serbs are constantly reminding themselves about the calamities they've suffered in history that it is undermining their ability to look at the future in a healthy constructive way.
Is this another case of some Serbian Xenophobia, it's a SOAP OPERA for christ sake, I am amazed how some Serbs are tolerant while some of you here spew hate against the Turks. The things in the past are done this is just for entertainment purposes.
The part on Conquest of Belgrade is only a fraction of the soap opera.Its has progressed further to other events long ago. Its part of the history of Serbia and the show does not denigrate the Serbs. The fact is that as part of Yeni Cherri so many military men from tje region gained prominence and power in tje then Turkish Empire so much so that they even held the reins of the govt. In their hands.Judging events of the 16th century on scales of nationalism and morality of today may not be fair. Its a historical soap opera to be taken as just that. Its interesting ,riveting and quite well made.
Hilarious.
Serbs living in western democracies sure have a funny view of Serbia (and, ultimately hate actual Serbs who live in Serbia more than anything else)
It's a crappy soap opera from Turkey. Before that, they were watching crappy soap operas from Spain.
There are also crappy shows produced in Serbia, so don't worry :)
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