I wish to thank Father Tribuhovic for his substantive and thoughtful posting of issues raised in my earlier discussions. I would like to make a few brief responses and raise some questions.
On this issue of the procession of Lazar's relics, my question has to do with the itinerary, the various places that the relics were taken. The procession of relics is a religious event of great power and symbolism, and this key moment in the history of Serbia and the Serb Church deserves to be known as clearly as possible. I thank Father Trbuhovic for the information he has already provided.
Father Trbuhovic states that the procession of Lazar's relics served in part to arouse the Serb people to liberate themselves from communism. In my arguments, I have suggested that the power, beauty, and symbolism of the 600th commemoration of Lazar's death was manipulated and appropriated by Slobodan Milosevic as well as religious nationalists. It was through his appropriation, including his famous speech about "battles to come" on June 28, 1989, that Milosevic helped solidify his power in Serbia.
Ironically, Milosevic of all the leaders of the former Yugoslavia, is the most connected with communist ideology; and his powerful wife, Mira Markovic, openly espouses it. Vidovdan 1989 culminated two years of cunning and violent activity by Milosevic in his rise to power and his destruction of more moderate and constructive Serb leaders.
Although I have been attacked by many posters as "anti-Serb" for condemning Milosevic and others' manipulation of the symbolism of Vidovdan, I would hope those posters would look at how Milosevic used that occasion to play with the emotions of the Serb people, steal their aspirations, and use them for ends that were evil and brought misery to Serbs as a whole. My argument here is not of course with Father Trbuhovic, but with those who view every question I raise as somehow "anti-Serb."
I write this on Vidovdan, 1996. We can only speculate what might have happened if on Vidovdan 1989, Milosevic, instead of talking about "battles and future battles" had spoke of the greatness of Serbia and how it can now manifest itself in a post-communist Yugoslavia, built upon understanding among various religions, tolerance, generosity, and economic and cultural revival. And if other important Serb intellectuals (whom I will discuss in a posting later), instead of talking about the alleged "genocide" against Serbs supposedly taking place in Kosovo at the time, had dealt with the serious, but clearly non-genocidal tensions in Albania of that period, with wisdom and practical judgment.
Michael Sells