September 15 could stand quietly in history as a day of great heroism and the beginning of the end of World War I. On that day, we know, we learned it in Yugoslav socialist schools, units of the then Serbian army with the support of Yugoslav volunteers and allies made a hole in the Thessaloniki front and tore apart the firmly established line of the Central Powers. In that war, we also learned that, the army of the then Serbia entered with the Yugoslav goal - to liberate the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Set in December 1, with the Niš Declaration, the goal was confirmed in 1914, by the rejection of the Allies' offer, and finally achieved in December 1915. If anything could have been - September 1918 had to be a Yugoslav holiday. Which he was in the first Yugoslavia.
Although she did not keep him quiet, the Second Yugoslavia did not celebrate him too much - she simply had too many big anti-fascist victories to be proud of. With Yugoslavia, September 15, that is, the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki Front, should have gone to historical rest in the nineties of the 20th century, as part of the same Yugoslav package, together with the state on whose foundations it stood. He didn't feel like it.
Somewhere in the second half of the 20th century, mostly in domestic literature, and then in the historiography that relied on that fiction, September 15 began to figure no longer as a great victory but as a tragic defeat of the so-called Serbian - or, if you will, Greater Serbian idea . Defeat precisely because that victory was embedded in the realization of the Yugoslav idea. It was meant to be said, and it was openly said - the "Serbs" died for nothing on the front for Yugoslavia, when later in that country it was the fraternal Yugoslav peoples who "buried" the proverbial knife in their backs. What then was the reason for the "Serbs" to overthrow Yugoslavia, and with new wars to return the historical situation to the state of the war in 1918, before the breakthrough of the Thessaloniki front, when all options were still open, including the one for the so-called Greater Serbia.
From the point of view of that specifically "Serbian" bending of the view of Yugoslav history, September 15 had to be, if not celebrated, then most certainly marked as the day of a great (ethno)national defeat, that is, of an epochal Yugoslav error or failure: because the hole in the Thessaloniki front opened wide the door to Yugoslavia. Ostensibly "Serbian" interests demanded that in the new war the door be slammed shut and the hole plugged once and for all. It's just that it doesn't work that way in history. Events can only be slightly reinterpreted, and they certainly cannot be erased, just as Yugoslavia is trying to be erased in today's Serbia. Yes, Yugoslavia is an obsessive place of Serbian nationalism, that is, a huge hole in its ethnic fabric. Every Serbian nationalist is more obsessed with Yugoslavia than any Yugoslav. Thanks to Serbian nationalism, and not in spite of it, a bright memory of Yugoslavia is maintained.
How else to explain the fact that "Serbian" nationalists choose an authentically Yugoslav date for the so-called day of Serbian unity? Even if it was ignorance or a simple mistake, any Freudian would easily be able to show that nothing in that choice was accidental. However, we will not engage in nuanced analyzes of obvious follies here. Even without that, at least a few things are clear. First, and with the decision to choose September 15 as a "Serbian" holiday, local nationalists demonstrate that apart from Yugoslav history, they cannot find any event to be proud of (not that there really aren't any). Second, Serbian nationalists only find events and dates important for all "Serbs" in the Yugoslav past. Third, instead of creating their own history, let's call it "Serbian", and they rely on it, they steal and reinterpret Yugoslav history, as if they are admitting that they themselves, as "Serbs", are not able to do anything good.
All of this is accompanied by the fourth – the obsessive need to erase an entire century (the so-called short 20th century). That century began for the "Serbs" with Yugoslavia and ended with the heinous war crimes of the "Serbian" military units against Yugoslavia and against humanity. In the 21st century, without Yugoslavia, the "Serbs" entered completely disoriented, unsure of themselves, with a lost moral authority, which previously drew its strength precisely from the Yugoslav heritage, including September 15, 1918. Again, a Freudian would have something to says about suppression. And again things are much more obvious and brutal than fine psychoanalytical weavings. Because it's not about suppression at all, it's about a bare lie. With that lie, they want to hide the true picture of "Serbian" history from the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, a history that could also be described as the existence of "Serbs" without Yugoslavia. Instead of a mirror that would show us what we have become - we want an image of "Serbian" unity on a Yugoslav holiday.
If there was any sense, September 15th should really be marked as a day on which one could symbolically present what we rejected for no good reason and how we, as "Serbs", fell into an epochal mess.
(Peščanik.net)
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