Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović (1881–1956) is arguably one the most controversial figures in contemporary Serbian national culture. Having been vilified by the former Yugoslav Communist authorities as a fascist and an antisemite, this Orthodox Christian thinker has over the past two decades come to be regarded in Serbian society as the most important religious person since medieval times and an embodiment of the authentic Serbian national spirit. Velimirović was formally canonised by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2003.In this book, Jovan Byford charts the posthumous transformation of Velimirović from 'traitor' to 'saint' and examines the dynamics of repression and denial that were used to divert public attention from the controversies surrounding the bishop's life, the most important of which is his antisemitism. Byford offers the first detailed examination of the way in which an Eastern Orthodox Church manages controversy surrounding the presence of antisemitism within its ranks and he considers the implications of the continuing reverence of Nikolaj Velimirović for the persistence of antisemitism in Serbian Orthodox culture and in Serbian society as a whole. This book is based on a detailed examination of the changing representation of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović in the Serbian media and in commemorative discourse devoted to him. The book also makes extensive use of exclusive interviews with a number of Serbian public figures who have been actively involved in the bishop’s rehabilitation over the past two decades.
- Cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- Materials used in the study
- 2. T he Life of Nikolaj Velimirović and His Changing Public Image, 1945–2003
- Denigration and marginalization: Velimirović’s status in post-war Yugoslavia
- Apotheosis and widespread admiration: Velimirović’s status today
- 3. Collective Remembering and Collective Forgetting: Memory of Nikolaj Velimirović and the Repression of Controversy
- The discursive dynamic of social forgetting: Repression as replacement
- Velimirović in Dachau: “Martyrdom” as a replacement myth
- The martyrdom myth in context: The narrative of Velimirović’s suffering and the rise of Serbian nationalism
- Remembering in order to forget: The martyrdom myth and repression
- The dynamic of everyday forgetting: Continuity and the “routinization” of repression
- 4. From Repression to Denial: Responses of the Serbian Orthodox Church to Accusations of Antisemitism
- Discourse, moral accountability, and the denial of prejudice
- “Serbs have never hated the Jews”: Literal denial of antisemitism
- “Parrots,” “idiots,” and “the mummies of reason”: Denial and offensive rhetoric
- Comparing Serbs and Croats and the rhetoric of “competitive martyrdom”: Comparative denial of antisemitism
- National self-glorification in a historical context
- Denial of antisemitism and the distancing from “extremism”
- “We are not antisemites, but…”: Denial and the rhetoric of disclaimers
- 5. “He was merely quoting the Bible!”: Denial of Velimirović’s Antisemitism
- Rising above the criticisms: Refusal to engage in controversy as a form of denial
- “Tiny mosquitoes” and the mighty “eagle”: Who has the right to remember Nikolaj Velimirović?
- The letter from “a Jewish woman”: Bishop Nikolaj as the savior of Jews
- The two kinds of antisemitism: The rhetoric of interpretative denial
- Repeating the word of God: Authority of the Gospels and the reification of antisemitic discourse
- “Then we are all antisemities!”: “Anti-Judaism” and Orthodox Christian identity
- Questionable boundaries between anti-Judaism and antisemitism
- Deicidal justification of Jewish suffering: The Holocaust as divine retribution
- 6. Antisemitism as Prophecy: Social Construction of Velimirović’s Sanctity
- The first stage of the campaign for canonization: The making of a religious “cult”
- Canonization in the Orthodox Church and the need for divine confirmation of sanctity
- Finding the “right” miracle: Incorruptibility of remains and miraculous icons
- The bishop who came “face to face with the living God”: Velimirović and the miracle of epiphany
- Velimirović as a “prophet”: The construction of the “Serbian Jeremiah”
- 7. Conclusion
- References
- Index
- Illustrations
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