Миф о сремском фронте в современной Сербии

This article aims to deconstruct the newly established myth of the Syrmian front in Serbian memory frameworks. Since the collapse of socialist Yugoslavia, Serbia has been in the process of building a nation state. This implies the revision of the internationalist approach to remembering the Second World War and shifting the focus onto the role of the Serbs. Based on the understanding that the war of liberation was at the same time a civil war, post-socialist revision creates conditions to re-estimate the necessity for open resistance and even to take the side of those who collaborated with the occupation regime. Partial legitimation of such collaboration stems from its anti-communist orientation and the absence of battles on territories controlled by more “pragmatic” forces. The liberation of Yugoslavia in 1944 started from Serbia, but it had not been previously the main battlefield. While the Yugoslav army liberated Serbia with the military aid of the USSR, former partisans had to confront the retreating Wehrmacht forces and their defense line near the SerboCroation border in the Syrmia region. Breaking through the Syrmian front was necessary for the liberation of the whole territory of Yugoslavia, and the front served as protection for Allied flanks. In today’s Serbia, however, the victory of the Yugoslav army has been transformed into the myth martyrium, that is, the Syrmian front is perceived as inflicting unnecessary suffering on young conscripts and intentionally organized by the communists out of hatred for the Serbian people. The author concludes that hegemonic anti-communist discourse in Serbia has revised Second World War memory there, shifting the country from the winner’s to the loser’s camp. In other words, such a narrow, “patriotic” approach entails the dismantling of anti-fascist tradition.