Noomachia (Serbia 2018) Lecture 9. Serbian Logos

Lecture 9. Serbian Logos

1. Serbs as southern slavs. Indo-European level of Serbian identity.
2. Serbian peasantry. Slavic matriarchy (Gasparini). Piatak. Vila. Mother Friday. Lepenski Vir, Vincha cultures.
3. The factor of Thracians, Illyrians.
4. White Serbia. Serbian came to Balkan. From where? Polabian slavs. Luzhitza. Sorbs. The style of Polabian slavs – sarmatians (Scythians) Pure Turanic. Differences with sclavins (bulgarians).
5. The relations with Byzance. Orthodoxy. Katekhonic concept.
6. Nemanici. Raska as new kingdom. Saint Sava holy Athos mountain tradition. Patriarchy of Pech.
7. The Empire. Byzantine - Bulgarian, Serb, Valachia, Russia.
8. Dushan the Strong. The control over Balkans.
9. Kosovo battle – the decision of King Lazar: fight, loose in order to resurrect. Nebesko zarstvo. Pure Iranian sequence – forces of Light loose forces of Darkness win. Eschatological aspect.
10. Conservation of Serbian identity during Ottoman era.
11. Serbian revival Vuk Karadjuc, Peter II Njegosh, Platonism. Milosh Zernianski: Serbian Dasein – where Serbia is?
12. After Ottomans. Great Serbia as eschatological project. Serbian dynasties.

Yougoslavia as simulacrum. Archeomodern. Non modern nature of Serbian identity.

Noomahia project is based on the in-depth studies of cultures, philosophical systems, arts, religions and psychological features and characteristics of human civilizations.  It reviews ancient and modern, highly sophisticated and also the “primitive", from the highly technologically developed to those lacking the written language. The ultimate aim is to demonstrate and conclusively prove that no single culture can be regarded in hierarchical way (developed/under-developed, higher /lower, modern/premodern, civilized/savage and so on). Responsible evaluation of any human culture should be judged from within by those who belong to it - without any imposition of outside biases (interpretation is always culturally biased). Noomahia aims to achieve this by deconstructing, removing all elements of cultural racism and ethnocentrism, that tend to be the key feature of every and any society – whether it be liberal and traditional, religious or secular.  Noomahia argues the case for the dignity of humanity that lives within the incommensurability of all existing cultural forms.

a.     The Three Logos approach

The starting point - and the main feature of Noomahia - is the concept of Three main Logos (Noological paradigms) that define the structure of any culture. Three Logos are

·       Apollonian (patriarchal, hierarchical, androcratic, vertical, exclusive, “heavenly”, transcendent) – light Logos;

·       Dionysian (middle, androgyneous, ecstatic, immanent without materialism, balanced, dialectic) – dark Logos;

·       Cybelian (matriarchical, horizontal, gynekocratic, inclusive, chthonic, immanent, materialistic) – black Logos.

The idea is the all three Logos are present in any culture, but are irreducible (invariants) that always keep their distinct essence. Hence the concept of Noomahia – or the fight between the Three Logos - is the dynamic of the creation of the moments of cultural and historic dialectic. These are variable in the timeline of history of any culture and develop in differing stages and phases. There is no universal rule that has or can define the succession and duration of these phases and moments.  Each culture and civilization has its own and unique sequence of the process of Noomahia, with particularities of winning or defeated Logos that result in them eventually changing their role.  Therefore, each culture must be studied and assessed separately, individually and with considerable care, avoiding any temptation to project the structure of one own studied experience on other issues. The rejection of ethnocentrism should be radical and brought to the last logical conclusion.

b.     Plurality of civilizations (anthropology of big spaces and long cycles)

The second principle of Noomahia project is the defining of the field of research and the limits of civilization. The concept of civilization is cultural and based on the presumption of the coexistence among the people of the earth of different existential circles (or horizons) identified as the plurality of Dasein’s.

The deep study of each civilization demands the questioning of previous interpretations of history and the development of humankind: it is a kind of spiritual emigration to the study of civilization that removes all the presumptions and pre-conceptions linked the personal cultural nature of those who study this approach. It is the application of the anthropological method (developed by F. Boaz and C. Levy-Strauss) to all human societies without exception – “civilized” or “savage “.

After accepting the need to ‘clear the decks’ and remove the accepted mental clutter of historical analysis; the next step will be clarification of the spatial concept of the culture of studied civilization and the semantic sequence (“l’historial”, Seynsgeschichte) of the most significant events interpreted in the optic of the concrete people and culture (and not by outside observer).

2.     Anthropological mapping of the world

a.     The necessity of revision of the concept universality

It has taken 10 years just to arrive at the point of being able to describe the plurality civilizations of the world covering all continents and peoples, cultures and religions, societies and philosophies. It is only the first rung of a long ladder but already there is a deep sense that we are starting to discover ‘The Unusual’. This in itself shows that we need the completely revise our concept of universality. It is clear that from these studies of Noomahia that is very evident that to date we have not normally been dealing with the ‘real universalism’ (speaking about human, rights, norms, life, sexes progress and so on) but with an ethno centrist projection of our own (Western) culture and civilization taking it erroneously for being “universal”. This is fundamental fault of the present-day globalization: it is deeply “racist” (in cultural sense), projecting and imposing modern and post-modern Western set of values on the majority of the rest of mankind. The real universalism can be reached by the way of projection but in dialogue with ‘The Other’, who in turn is accepted with all its particularities, pecularities and originalities (not depending on our own value judgement). We must not be selective in what we analyse. We must all investigate with clear eyes and unprejudiced minds – and maintain this understanding and impartiality going forward.

Let us concentrate on the Serbian Logos. First of all, it is sure and certain there is such thing as Serbian Dasein or Serbian existential horizon. That is absolutely sure because there is the Serbian people. And having Serbian people, that means that there is such thing as Serbian Dasein and Serbian existential horizon. As long as I know, there is no one who has dedicated to describe fully Serbian Dasein with Heideggerian categories, but it is up to some level, the technical task. If we understand what we have said about noology, about Dasein, about existential horizon, and knowing being and time of Heidegger, we could apply his categories (he called that existentials) special categories to describe Dasein. And it is technical task to apply that to Serbian Dasein.

In my second book on Heidegger that is called Martin Heidegger: The Possibility of Russian Philosophy, I made the same for Russian Dasein. And I have arrived at the conclusion that Daseins are different, because Russian Dasein appeared to have some different kind of existential, based on the different structure of Russian existential horizon. And that is a kind of example you could use in order to repeat the same thing for the Serbian Logos or Serbian Dasein, in order to explore the possibility of Serbian philosophy. As long as I know, there is no such kind of Serbian philosophy as something clear, complete. There are Serbian philosophers but there is no such thing as Serbian philosophy, as well as Russian. There is no Russian philosophy. There are Russian philosophers, very brilliant or less brilliant, but there is no such kind as Russian philosophy. We started to create something like that at the end of the 19th century, many years after the existence of German, French, Latin, and Greek philosophy (thousand years after). And that was interrupted in our history with Communists that have finished this process. And now we tried to come back to the moment we have stopped. And that is not yet success. We are still outside, in Russian history, of the moment where the process of manifestation of Russian religious philosophy was interrupted. So comparing with Serbia, maybe it could serve as example. I’m not sure whether there is such kind of serious effort to create Serbian philosophy. It is always possible because there is Serbian Dasein. But to reveal it, to put it in the form of Logos, is not technical problem. We could technically approach to that but to do that we need some Serbian genius and I am sure that it belongs to the present and the future, and not to the past. In the past, we have a kind of philosophical, existential, historical ground for that.

But we could make a kind of short, preliminary analysis of what is Serbian existential horizon. The first fact of the Serbian historical sequence is arrival of so called unnamed prince to the Byzantium where he was accepted by the Byzantine Emperor. The tradition affirms that this unnamed prince was from White Serbia that is identified somewhere in the north of the Eastern Europe. More or less, one of the theories is that had something to do with Lusatia (Lausitz, Łužica), with Serbs, with one of the Polabian Slav tribes – Łužici, Łužicane and Obotrites (Obodrzycy). And the last traces of it are actual Lusatian Serbs or Sorbs. That is one of the theories. So there is a kind of Serbian motherland that is situated not in the Balkans but to the north of the Balkans. At the same time there is the question of the urheimat of Slavs, motherland of Slavs. That is situated to the north of the Carpathian Mountains. That was not original Serbian place but the proto-Slavs lived to the north of the Carpathian Mountains in the space of the Western Ukraine actually. And there was as well situated White Croatia and White Croats were near to that. And after expansion of the slavs, part of the slavs emigrated to the north of the Baltic states and among the other Polabian Slavs. They were the dominating population of the 5th and 6th centuries of the coasts of the Baltic Sea. And one of these Polabian tribes, Lutici, Obotrites and Lusatian, are presumed to be Serbian ancestors, living to the west of all the other Polabian tribes. And from this point, the ancestors of Serbs arrived to the Balkans and after first settling to the East of Balkans. And after that the Byzantine Emperor granted the territories to the present day Serbia as a kind of territories in order to defend the Byzantine Empire against Avar that have created their cognates in Pannonia, part of Romania, and modern day Hungary. So that is conventional history. There are many alternative versions but let us take that as a kind of orientation.
So what is interesting is the name of the territory of Polabian Slaves. That was called the European Sarmatia. And that was dominated by the Sarmatian tribes. So the Slavs were very closely connected with Sarmatians, Iranian nomadic groups of population that occupied almost all of Eastern Europe as population but much more as ruling class. And from these Sarmatian groups were created a kind of ruling class of Eastern European society. This idea was developed in Poland who traced the roots of their aristocracy to the Sarmats, and the same for Balts. It seems that when we study the type of the society of Polabian Slavs, that they were Turanian in our sense. They were very very warrior. They had not so much developed peasantry. The major feature of the Polabian Slavs was their warrior-like attitudes, having the horses and the veneration of horses. And they were very independent. They couldn’t tolerate any power above them. So they were Sarmatian, Turanian type. They spoke Slavic languages but with many Sarmatian features. We could not say anything for sure about the balance between Sarmatian aristocracy and Slavic population but the type of Polabian Slavs was Sarmatian and Turanian with serious amount of aristocracy, of noblemen, warrior with horse. And that is Turanian type of society.
What is interesting is that there was a different between this Polabian type of Sarmatian Slavs and Sclavins, the other Slavic group coming to the Eastern Balkans with Avars. There dominated more peasantry. So the Serbs coming to Balkans were the bearers of this Sarmatian spirit. And that affected Serbian identity. After the peasantry was developed and Slavification of Thracians and maybe pre-Thracians population was accomplished because the territory where the first Serbians settled in the Balkans belonged before them to Thracians, Thracian society was mixed between three functional Indo-European society and the rest of the traces of the pre-Indo-European peasantry belonging to the ancient civilization of Great Mother. So Serbs settled over this existential horizon, assimilated, affected, and finally created a special Serbian people with differences from Bulgarian people (precisely Macedonians). The dominating identity of the early Serbs was precisely this warrior type of human being. So peasantry was very secondary and wasn’t dominating in the beginning. That is why special Serbian character was formed basing on this Polabian Sarmatian type. So Serbs were considered as warrior first. So that was a kind of pre-hajduk type. So small Serbs, big Serbs, everybody was a knez; little knez, small knez, big knez. And that was a kind of nomadic Iranian tradition, not having the great tsardom, not having the other rule over the other. And that was a kind of aristocratic society, mixed with the previous population that was as well included in the Serbian society. But the balance, for example in Russia, Russian society peasant style is absolutely dominating. So that was the peasant society and the tales and the folklores and the stories about bogatyrs were based on the peasant figure or they were of foreign origins. So for example in Eastern Slavs and above all in Russian society there was not Slavic aristocracy. All Russian aristocracy was not of Slavic origins. They were Germans, they were maybe as well Sarmatians, but not Slavic. In Serbian case, it’s not the case. There were many aristocracy families from the very beginning. Not one, not only dynasty but many other; secondary thirdly. Up to a certain point the Serbians were aristocracy or considered themselves to be. The aristocracy is the image. If you are knez you behave like knez (prince). That is the kind of attitude. And that was dominating attitude.
Similar situation was with Polish people. Everybody pretended to be szlachcic. Almost one third of the population was szlachcic (prince, aristocracy). In Russia for example there was less than one percent of the population belonging to the aristocracy and in Poland, one third. So in Serbia, maybe like that, half the population were considered to be knez, small knez aristocracy. But that is very important. That is warrior tradition of Sarmatian type. That was a kind of very important starting point for studying Serbian identity that, we could identify, including in the 21st and 20th century. So that is the very stable tradition of Serbian psychology. So when we have this type of society or existential horizon, it’s very difficult to construct the state because nobody wants to submit to the authority of the other. So everybody is its own authority and there is no other authority. That is a kind of aristocratic anarchy in this kind of existential horizon. That is the constant feature of Serbian history.
The next element was the influence of the Byzantine culture. So Serbs were Christianized, living under protection of Byzantines. And that was acceptance of the Christianity in the Eastern form. That was not so clear in the early phases because there was no split before. When Serbs were Christianized, there was not clear difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. There was unity that was split later. But nevertheless, the dominant influence over Serbs was exercised by Byzantines. And that as well was in the beginning of the Balkan Serbia and that is in the end now. So that is very stable factor of Christian Orthodox Byzantine tradition. But we have spoken yesterday that Byzantine tradition of Orthodoxy is not only religious tradition. It is as well cultural, political, and social. So Serbs were integrated in the context of the Byzantine empire with Katehon as the concept, with the patriarch as the head of the church, and as well popular Christianity that integrated pre-Christian tradition of the holidays, of the pre-Christian figures, in the context of Christian saints, festivals, and so on. So popular Slav, Serbian Christianity was as well not so much exclusive in front of the pre-Christian tradition but inclusive. So Serbian Christianity included many pre-Christian types of tradition, figures; Petak, Sveta Nedelja, Svetac George, Prorok Ilija or Sveti Nikolaas the new archetypes for pre-Christian Indo-European patriarchal figures (mostly). So if we want to know pre-Christian Serbian tradition, it is not only folklore or folk songs or pagan myths that are conserved in the very small quantity but correct analysis of Serbian Christian tradition could show us much more about pre-Christian culture of Serbian people than for example artificial postmodern reconstruction of paganism. So if we want to understand what was before Christianity, we need to analyze Serbian Christianity and concentrate on certain figures and festivals and traditions linked to Serbian Christian saints and the special days of the calendar and so on. Because that was inclusive.
But what was included? Precisely we have already made the analysis that was the one level of Indo-European patriarchal tradition that was linked with pre-Serbian Thracian existential horizon but reinforced as well by first Serbs, who were bearers of the same vertical structure. And in Greek Byzantine tradition they met with a very similar concept, and Thracian tradition very similar, and in Roman tradition, and in Hellenistic tradition. That was around Platonism that was all created. In pre-Christian Serbia, in Christian Serbia, in Thracians, Byzantines, Romans, that was a kind of Indo-European level but at the same time there was a paleo-European tradition and existential horizon that was very powerful here, more powerful than in the north of Europe. So in the north of Europe, in the Polabian White Serbia, the motherland of Serbs, there were lesser elements of the matriarchal type but they could exist from Cucuteni–Trypillia culture as the traces as well to the north and to the east but in the lesser scale than in the Balkans.
There was a kind of matriarchal dimension that was as well embedded in the newly created Serbian identity. That was the motherland of the matriarchal civilization. Here in Balkans that was very strong. And that explains partly what Gasparini (Italian author) called Slavic matriarchy. There was no such kind as Slavic matriarchy but influence of matriarchy in the Balkans was very strong and embedded in Serbian tradition. That was reflected in the Vila history in some Gestalt, in some feminine images of the folk songs and folk traditions, or in the very ancient song of Skadar, creation of Skadar, when the woman was blocked in the wall. That was the origin of the creation of the city. It is a purely Cybelian story about the creation of the city of Skadar. It is very tragic, very romantic, but matriarchal. That was not so much Sarmatian by Serbian. That was Balkanic. And we have exactly the same pattern in Romanian culture with Meșterul Manole, putting in the wall of the most beautiful church created in the Argeș in the Carpathian Mountains by Meșterul Manole who was obliged to put there his wife who was as well pregnant as in the song of Skadar.
So the idea is that some matriarchal aspect of very ancient Balkanic matriarchal civilization as well had these elements embedded in the existential horizon of Serbs. And we need to measure this influence. We could not say for sure how deep this influence was. It is certainly that there was such influence. It was mirrored in the Serbian peasant tradition on some level, not in the whole tradition. Because that was male tradition, based on the heavy plow that could be managed only be men laborers, but there were many traditions that linked woman with the earth, with the crop, with laboring the earth, that we need to identify more in order to have a concrete picture or image of this deepest level of Serbian identity. So that was a kind of preliminary analysis of the Serbian Dasein. But the new edition of this Dasein begins with Nemanja dynasty. As well Christianization was made in the context of the Great Moravia and Cyril and Methodius tradition. So that was already something Slavic in all that. So Serbians have received Christian tradition in the Cyrillic, in the Slavic way. And that was very important step because that was in the religious sense linked to Bulgarian initiative to organize the special kind of Slavic Christian church, so called sixth Patriarchy declared by the Bulgarians in order to have independence and autonomy for Slavic Christianity. And that was the claim to create first Slavic patriarchy, independent in the first Bulgarian kingdoms after Christianization. So Serbs were in the same conceptual field. Acceptance of the Orthodox Christianity, but in the Slavic form, with Church Slavonic, which was unique Bulgarian language that was elaborated in the Great Moravia, accepted in Bulgaria and in Russia. So Church Slavonic language is not Russian or Serbian. It’s much more Bulgarian. Or it is considered to be one of the special south Slavic languages (church Slavonic).
But what is important is that Serbs were integrated into Christian society not only with Byzantine domination but as well in the Slavic context. And that was fully developed with Nemanja dynasty. So that was a kind of idea that now it is the time, and that was event in Serbian history, now it is the time with Nemanja to create Serbian kingdom, kingdom in the full Byzantine sense, repeating up to the same time, Bulgarian example. Because the Bulgarians were the first to claim Slavic kingdom and Slavic special autonomous church. So that was the kind of Bulgarian heritage, in the competition level a bit with Bulgarians but at the same time as continuation of the same. Great Moravia was lost for Orthodoxy and for Slavic special tradition and the time of Russia didn’t come or Romania, so there were two pretenses to create some independent Slavic Christianity in Byzantine sense, and now it appears literally, how important the context of kingdom in all that was, because Byzantine means a kind of empire. So they should be based on the symphonic relationship between the sacred king and the Patriarch or the head of the church. That was first made by Bulgarians in the first and the second Bulgarian kingdom. But with Nemanja and Saint Sava, that was repeated in the Serbian case.
So creation of Serbian kingdom and Serbian Patriarchy in Peć was the same event as acceptance of the Katehonic mission. First the claim to be Katehon was made by Bulgarians and Macedonians (the same space). And with Nemanja, there was second claim. So the creation of Serbian state was preparation to take the heritage of the Byzantines and replace the mission of Katehon from universality of Byzantine Empire to Slavic world. And there was the Bulgarian pre-tendencies and Serbian. In certain moment, Bulgarians were dominating and Serbs were in the periphery of this, and with Nemanja there is a kind of growth and rise of this Serbian Katehonic tradition that has affected absolutely Serbian identity in the next period.
But this Katehonian tradition based on the symphony between Serbian king and Serbian patriarch with seventh patriarchy (Serbian this time) was claim of Byzantine heritage. So we could say that Russia and the rise of Russia was a kind of Third Rome. Before that was Veliko Tarnovo in the second Bulgarian and Veliki Preslav Third Rome and now it is Russia Third Rome. It was second claim in the Slavic existential space to receive Byzantine Orthodox mission. So that was the concept - Serbian state, Serbian church, Serbian patriarchy, as Katehon. That was a kind already of form of Serbian Logos. Because all Christian tradition and the links and ties of Saint Sava with Mt. Athos, with all the monks’ metaphysical tradition of spiritual mystical Orthodoxy was brought to Serbia and put to the center of Serbian Christian Katehonic enlightenment linked with the concept of the sacred Serbian kingdom. It was considered in Nemanja's time already as proto-empire, Serbian empire that should include the world in it. Because the Katehonic tradition is the fight, as we have explained, against anti-Christ. So that was the Apollonian Dionysian mission of the tsar but by extension of the people. So Tsar, church, and people formed Katehonic unity. A kind of logical philosophical tool for that was the Byzantine tradition that included as Christianity the pre-Christian way of thinking and that was organization of the first and (I would say) greatest form of Serbian Logos. So with Nemanja, Saint Sava, Patriarchy of Peć, were laid the foundations of Serbian Logos. That is Serbian identity where existential horizon and Serbian Dasein has reached its height. So we could not imagine anything comparable or anything similar in all of Serbian history. So that was a kind of highest point, where the immanent Serbian Dasein has created a Serbian Logos in the state, in the Serbian religious tradition with St. Sava, and Serbian people as Katehonic people with the mission to fight against darkness with tsar, with kings, in the favor of Christianity. And that Serbian mission was for it. So Serbs essentially are bearers of that Serbian Logos formed and explicitly manifested in the time of Nemanja dynasty from very beginning.
And that was the claim as well that opposed Serbian Katehonic expectations to Bulgarians. Because that was not opposition. They were kind of competitors. Because they had very similar post Byzantine, as well Slavic, as well Orthodox, as well Katehonic identity. So that was the roots of competition of two greatest Balkanic Slavic people, two versions of Katehonic society, independent from Byzantine Kingdom and political state and independent up to a certain point of Church organization. That was prefiguration of Great Russia, of Third Rome because there were two examples of something that was repeated in the fourth century of Russia. But that was made before us. The claim of Bulgarians and Serbs to be Katehonic Slavic people with eschatological mission in the war of light against the forces of darkness, defending Katehon was much earlier than Russian claim of the same. Russia maybe made more spectacular success in that, coming to the world power, but ideology was very similar or just the same. Russia Third Rome is the concept of translation of empire, repetition of Bulgarian example. But at the end of the Byzantine history, in the fifteenth century, there appeared a kind of height of this process, highest point. And that was Dusan the Strong.
Dusan the strong created the real Empire that controlled almost all Balkans territory and the major part of Greece. And that was special and political space where this mission has obtained its concrete limits. So that was the greater Serbian empire that was made. It lasted not too long but Mt. Athos was included under control of Serbian King. So in the time of Dusan the Strong, there was a kind of concrete realization of this Katehonic tradition with Russia in the center and with very weak (at that time) Bulgaria. Bulgaria wasn’t a kind of alternative to that. So that was the highest point, the rise of Nemanja, and the highest point of this Logos. So the Logos was formed in the intellectual, spiritual, religious time in the beginning of Nemanja, and has reached its full special manifestation in the space, in the concrete reality, in the Baltics, in the time of Dusan the Strong. So all this Nemanja period was the period of birth, development, and maturation of the Serbian Logos. So the real Serbians that lived in that period were a kind of archetype. So to be Serb means to belong to this point of history. As for us, to be Russian, that means to belong to Ivan the Terrible time. So that was the height of our historical, spiritual, political and cultural achievement.
So Serbian Logos is located there in time and in space. So there is the greater Serbian space and there is the greater Serbian time because the Logos in Byzantine and Slavic Christian historical situation was formed. So everything we have there and then is purely Serbian in any sense. Everything that existed before Nemanja was a kind of introduction. Everything that existed after Dusan the Strong was a kind of equal resounding of that, continuation, kind of consequences. That is the center of Serbian history and the highest point of Serbian Logos.
After that was the very quick decline of that and the growth of Ottoman Empire. And the next point was the Kosovo Battle where the future of Katehon was decided. And the song of Kosovo battle, the song of King Lazar in the Vuk Karadjuc textbook is very revealing. I remand that you know better than everybody else that that was a kind of choice in front of King Lazar; to have царство небесное (heavenly kingdom) or to win in the Kosovo battle and to have царство земаљско (earthly kingdom). In both cases, he should fight. In both cases, the Serbs should come to the Kosovo battle and should participate. And every family that declined to be there are damned. That was the damnation of the King Lazar. So everybody should defend the Logos. But decision and the choice was to lose the earthly battle and to win the battle of light but fighting strongly and dying in the Kosovo field or to have the victory but to lose the fight for the light. That is Iranian tradition that the force and the army of light is weak. Because sometimes there is a time for light to win and darkness to overcome and the army of light has special limitations. It could not accept the weapon of the darkness. It could not betray its holy nature and holy essence and that are limitations because the devil and the darkness has no rule. It could easily overcome the nature. It is hubris, titanic forces. And the army of light has its rule. You could not win at any price. You should stay with Christ, with verticality up to the end. And that was the choice of King Lazar and decision was made - ‘I will go to fight against the Ottomans. I accept the loss. And I am sacrificing myself and my people in order to have heavenly Kingdom.’ So that was decision of the hero of light. That was a kind of transcendentalization of the Nemanja Kingdom and Empire and obtaining post-human post-mortem dimension of the Serbian Logos. That was the pure martyrdom and pure sacrifice of all Serbian people in order to come to heavenly Kingdom.
So that was not the loss. That was the greatest victory. That was reflection of traditional Sarmatian ethics - to die in the battle in order to be immortal, to die in order to win. It is better to be defeated with Christ than to win with Satan. That was the main lesson of Kosovo battle. And when we read the song of the Kosovo Battle, there was not glorification only of humility of Serbs but the greatest braveness. So they fought up to the end. They destroyed everything they could, including the chief of the Ottoman army. So that was heroic battle. The battle was very serious. But decision was made beforehand. That was purely Christian, purely Sarmatian, purely Indo-European decision and not something casual. Not defeat in front of the material force and power. So that is the kind of assumption of Serbia, passing from the earthly Serbia to heavenly Serbia. And that was accomplishment of Katehonical mission. That was the fight against anti-Christ and that was defeat. And there came the end.
So after that, the next period of Serbian history was to be in Hell and to conserve identity in Hell. Not betray it, not converting to Islam, not accepting the rules of dominating power, but conserve its Nemanja identity, its profound identity, its Christian Orthodox Slavic identity with all the suffering. That was the history of suffering, being in the historical Hell for centuries. So that is very dramatic. But what is important is that was not meaningless. That was continuation and consequence of the period of greatest and a new divine test for Serbian people and creation of the introduction of resurrection. That was the dying process in order to resurrect. That was not meaningless suffering. That was completely meaningful suffering. That was eschatological test in order to resurrect, but resurrection of Serbian Logos.
The next moment in Serbian Logos was precisely the moment when the opportunity to liberate Serbian people from Ottoman control came. That was new challenge to Serbian Logos. And what did Serbs do in that situation? There was one part of tradition. There was a kind of monarchistic, imperial, Orthodox, Serbian, patriot, archaic. So they conserved the elements of the real and profound Serbian Logos that was in direct connection with the Serbian Dasein itself, the core of its Dasein. Because there was a kind of Orthodox Serbian, conservative imperial tradition that continued to be present in the end of the Ottoman rule. And that was a very great inspiration that was in all the Serbian people. And in the part of Serbian aristocracy there appeared Obrenović and Karađorđević trying to incorporate this spirit and this identity in order to restore Serbian kingdom, greater Serbia with Orthodox Serb identity, with Logos, following Nemanja’s example of kind of resurrection of the Serbian Logos after traumatic period of suffering.
But the time when this appears, when Ottoman Empire was destroyed, that was modern time, when the Cybelian Logos dominated, and when the west was already under full domination of this modern world vision, where there was no place for such kind as Apollonian Logos, Christian tradition, empire, kingdom, or warrior heroic values. All that was discredited and destroyed in the West. So the west power fighting against Ottomans tried to use this will of the Serbian people to restore its identity as a tool in order to destroy Ottoman Empire that was traditional, to destroy Austrian Empire, and to block Russian expansion in the Balkans. So they organized masonic structures in Serbia, they made education of the Serbian nationalists in the republican spirit, and they tried as well to enter in this process of liberation in order to propose their nationalist vision (3rd political theory), liberal vision (1st political theory), and after with Tito and the other, 2nd political theory. All three political theories were a kind of network (мрежа or сеть) put over Serbian identity but with no connection. That was a kind of suffocating network in order not to reveal it in a proper sense and to deviate Serbian energy and Katehonic revival in the other sense.
But there were kind of many Logois in that Serbian liberation. There was inner profound Nemanja Katehonic identity, the pure Serbian Logos. There was western European influence. There was Russian pragmatic or Orthodox Empire, very friendly Logos maybe by pragmatical reasons by affinity of Third Rome and Moscow with the same opposition against western powers. There was a kind of different form of what I’m calling archaeo-modernity. Archaeo-modernity is not modernity as in the west. As in the west there was tradition and diminishing of tradition was the growth of modernity (so either modernity or tradition). But archaeo-modernity is where tradition and modernity coexisted in a very bad and sick way. You have something or you have something opposite. You have tradition or you have modernity. That was the case for Western Europe. But for Russia or Serbia, there was archaeo-modernity. You are at the same time for modernization and at the same time for archaic roots. So that created a kind of schizophrenic society. Russian society after Peter the Great is purely archaeo-modern and schizophrenic.
I presume something like that was producing here. Serbian Logos was after the end of the Ottoman Empire schizophrenic and archaeo-modern when legitimate claims to restore Serbian Logos were mixed with modernist republican liberal socialist nationalist tradition. They blocked both because they are two Logos. Modernity is the Logos of Cybele and inner Serbian Logos is the Logos of Apollo and the Logos of Dionysus. So that was deep noological contradiction that wasn’t remarked, wasn’t accepted as such, and wasn’t cured and that created sick society because archaeo-modern is sick society. That is the case for many other societies. But the difference between the western society and the archaeo-modern society is precisely that in Europe, modernity entered in the society in the logical way, following Aristotelian logic (modernity or tradition. If you have something modern in that place you shouldn’t have something tradition). So you destroy, for example, monarchy and you install republic. And that was the same. Church or atheism. In archaeo-modern society, atheism and church, republic and kingdom, tradition and modernity coexist in a very bad way without remarking each other. That creates a double interpretational reading. So everything is double. It’s purely bipolar disease because you see something, you interpret in two contradictory ways at the same time. So there is democracy or is no democracy. Democracy and dictatorship is the same.
So that is not Dionysian but what we have called, according to Gilbert Durand, mystical nocturne. You see one thing and you call it completely different name. That is schizophrenic attitude because that is split of personality. And in Western Europe there was the clear personality; you accept modernity or you accept tradition. In our society that was archaeo-modernity. You accept both. Serbian Logos and liberalism or communist or nationalism that belongs to completely different context without noticing it. It is not conscious lie. It is unconscious lie. Conscious lie is when we know the truth and we hide the truth but unconscious truth is when we don’t know the truth and don’t care about it. So we are lying just because not having any interest to the truth at all. So that is archaeo-modernity and I presume that to the end of the Ottoman Empire, in the beginning of the independence of modern day Serbia was precisely this element - this mixture between Chetniks, between Communists, between Liberals, between Masons, between traditionalism, between Orthodox Popes and all this mixture was completely archaeo-modern with no clearly defined line of division.
That was creation of Yugoslavia. First Yugoslavia had two contradictory readings in the same. Majority of the Serbs have seen in that restoration of the Greater Serbia and that was to end of the Karađorđević rule that has produced the reactions of everybody else (above all the reactions of Croats). Because that was kind of how the Serbs saw Yugoslavia. That was the rule of Serbs, the re-creation of the Greater Serbia, and return to the Dusan Dynasty in new situation but at the same time that was republic with completely modernist ideology, with balance of the interest, and bourgeois type in the center. So the materialist, commercial, and egoist element were dominant in the nationalist or liberal sense. That was the archaeo-modern mixture of the society. And that was the reason of misunderstanding of the components of Yugoslavia. That was not internationalism. That was not purely liberalism. That was not empire. That was not confederation. That was something archaeo-modern.
And any pole in early Yugoslavia had its own reading of what was going on. So for the Serbs that was the victory and as well for the radical Chetniks that was the kind of return to the roots, that was the kind of accomplishment of the mission of Katehonic tradition. For the other that was conventional, purely multi-national confederation organized by purely pragmatical materialistic bourgeois reasons. There was multiplicity of the reading of Yugoslavia. There was the end with German occupation. And the fight of two powers; communist partisans and Chetnik and monarchist partisans. That was where the future of Yugoslavia after the Second World War defined in this fight. And the victory of the Soviet Union of the Nazi regime was the reason why second political theory dominating in Eastern Europe and in Yugoslavia as well.
So the new Yugoslavia was based on the second political theory but at the same time that was the new reading of what is Yugoslavia, with the Marxism completely strange to the concrete development of rural peasant Serbian society with archaic tradition, with partly modernized cities and that was the new kind of archaeo-modernity where the pure form of the Serbian Logos was prohibited. That was put out, was considered to be dissident, and Chetniks were persecuted as counterrevolutionary tendencies. So the pure Orthodox version of Serbian Logos was prohibited. There was a kind of domination of the second political theory of Marxism, absolutely Cybelian. And that was a kind of new Yugoslavia.
But when the second political theory began to shake in the Soviet Union, that as well affected Yugoslavia. And with Milosevic, Serbian reading of Yugoslavia has reappeared. So that was a kind of nationalistic reaction, not clear philosophically and not explained. But intuitively that Serbian fight for Yugoslavia was the fight for this Katehonic reading of Serbian state. That was as well the last greatness of fight of the Serbs for Република Српска, for Српска Крајина, Книнска Крајина, Slovenia, Baranya, and Western Srijem? and in the last moment the fight for Kosovo against Albanians. So the Serbs with Milosevic, considered Yugoslavia as Katehonic entity unconsciously, without saying it clearly, without explaining that. And saying that with very awkward language, trying to adjust this to communist, to nationalist agenda, to western liberal. So that was archaeo-modern version of Serbian Logos and that was defeated. But as any defeat of this kind of Logos, has something positive inside. As the fight of Kosovo, that is the fight for the light. In any Serbian hero that has given his life to defense of Yugoslavia, they have sacrificed their life for the case of this Logos of light, for the deeply Katehonian mission. In their case, there was no convention. That was the mistake. That was the clear breakthrough to the reality of the Serbian identity. They have invested the blood and life in this Serbian identity and that could not vanish without a trace. That was continuation of the Kosovo battle. That was continuation of the Serbian way through the history. And that was preparation for the future, for real eschatological, Katehonical Serbian future.
After that, with the betrayal of Russia that has betrayed itself in the 90s and afterwards, there was a kind of actual moment of Serbian state. That was defeat recognized by society, by state, and by Serbian people. Russia could not be a kind of real alternative to modernization or to westernization. There is the first political theory that dominates now in purely Cybelian sense. But where is now the Serbian Logos? I presume that he is here. He is in Serbian people, in Serbian identity, in Serbian space, and in Serbian culture. And having received this defeat, this defeat should be first of all understood and deciphered, should be interpreted correctly in order to go further in the Serbian history because now the problem that we are facing with Serbian Logos is almost the same that we have with the other form of Apollonian Logos and Dionysian in Dionysian-Apollonian sense. So there is the huge planetary fight that is lost almost by everybody. Maybe we Russians have the image that we resist still or Syrian or Iranians still resist. But domination of the force that has overcome Serbian fight is not only the west or United States but something deeper. In that sensation, it should not be reason for despair. Because the force of Cybele or return of the Great Mother is a kind of coming of anti-Christ or liberation of Satan from the abyss and that was planned and let to happen by God. And that is the final test. I think that concerning Serbian Logos, now is the moment not to blame the state or the society, or Russian or western to do what they do but to concentrate precisely on the cultivation of this Logos instead of everything because it is planned test, maybe last one. Maybe not. Maybe there will be one more test, one more fight, one more chance, as you have as Serbs two chances; creation of first Yugoslavia and fight of Milosevic and nationalist renewal. Both chances were lost. Both. But maybe there will be the new one.
If there is the living tradition, if there is living Serbian Dasein, it could make a kind of analysis of why that was lost, how we should not repeat the error of the other, how to defend the pure form of Serbian Logos against this attack, because nothing has ended yet. So when the Serbs are, there is Serbian Dasein, there is Serbian state. That’s already something. Maybe it’s a little bit awkward in actual situation but it is. And that is very important. That is already something to seize as opportunity, not as response, not as answer, but as something that is positive Serbian value. Serbian people, Serbian tradition, Serbian culture, Serbian heritage, Serbian state, Serbian church, Serbian Christianity. So we have many things now and because there is spiritual fight, not material. It has no comparison with material aspects. All that is secondary. If we fight the spiritual battle, we win everything. If we could win one Serbian heart, we could win everything. The fight is over and that is the victory. So that is the fight for human that is going inhuman. That is not material atomic confrontation between the masses of matter. There is the human spirit and the fight is inside of us and the Logos is inside of us. It’s not something that is imposed on us from outside. So we are the Logos and Logos acts through us. And Serbian Logos acts and lives through Serbs as everlasting or maybe not everlasting, lasting continuously up to the end of time.
So I think that Serbian people were chosen in order to keep its identity up to the end of time and to reappear in the last moment of history on the side of God and Christ and Logos of Apollo and this verticality in order to participate in the general universal Kosovo battle or create the universal empire of light, empire of Christ, whose prefiguration was the Kingdom of Nemanja and Dusan the Strong. So that is more or less my exposition of Serbian Logos. And we could say as well that Yugoslavia and modern day Serbia were and are simulacrum of real Serbia. It’s clear. But simulacrum is as archaeo-modernity. It’s partly archaic and partly perverted and caricature. So we need to solve the problem of simulacrum and restore the authenticity and the pure state of what is not simulacrum and that is hiding behind simulacrum. So we need to deduce the grain of truth from that.