Is the regime financing or just preserving the murals that read: "When the army returns to Kosovo..." across Serbia? And what does that message even mean? Deutsche Welle (DW) investigates this fight for symbols and walls.
First, civil engineer Danijel Dašić announced on the X network that the State Audit Institution (DRI) had allegedly determined that the Ministry of Construction, commissioned by the SNS (Serbian Progressive Party), paid 217.000 euros to paint the mural "When the Army Returns to Kosovo..."
However, such an item could not be found anywhere in the SAI reports. And numerous denials quickly followed, first from the SAI itself.
The central Red Star fan group claimed on social media that they had written most of the graffiti, at their own expense. They added that the first such graffiti was made by Partizan fans, and that this "Serbian" thing is above all other divisions.
They say the words of the folk song are intended to "encourage the national spirit and faith in liberation."
DW contacted Danijel Dašić to find out where he got the information that the state or the ruling party was funding the murals. He says he received the information in "quite precise details."
"It is currently not possible to confirm the announcement about the murals as a state project, because on the Ministry's website, the last projects supported by the Ministry are dated 2019. And we also know that the state knows how to remove a document when necessary," he says.
He is convinced, however, that murals are created in "close cooperation with the state." He adds that it requires a lot of paint and other equipment, sometimes in places where it is "impossible to do without the help of the state."
"The best example is the mural on the highway near Ćuprija, where a retaining wall nearly a hundred meters long was used to create the mural. This work would not have been possible to organize without the participation and support of the Roads of Serbia service."
Glorification of militarism
When the first mural with the inscription "When the army returns to Kosovo..." appeared in the spring of 2023, the NGO Youth Initiative for Human Rights decided to paint it over, with the support of the organization Krokodil. Because of this, they received several misdemeanor charges from the police.
Ognjen Ćirić from the Initiative tells DW that the mural was created during the Ohrid Agreement negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo, and that the "great summer campaign" preceded the armed attack in Banjska and the deterioration of the rights of the Serbian community in Kosovo.
Ćirić sees the murals as "hate speech." He says they glorify militarism and target other peoples, especially Bosniaks and Albanians, to deny or justify crimes. This, he says, provides additional impetus and prepares the ground for new violence.
"Murals like this are practically a call for war mobilization. Yet, during the UN General Assembly session, we heard Serbian officials say that they do not want to put Serbia back in the trenches. If that is indeed the case, then why do messages celebrating war and destruction continue to desecrate our streets?" asks Ćirić.
Where does the fantasy go?
When asked how he sees these murals in today's political context, DW's interlocutor says that they speak of the dominance of nationalist discourse and that the government and institutions do not want to face the past.
"The messages are intended primarily for the citizens of Serbia, to remind them of the 'heroic criminals', but also for the victims in the region, as a message that the crimes against them have not been acknowledged. And to the international community as a signal of stubborn politics that deny responsibility and slowly tread old paths that must not be renewed," he believes.
Ćirić adds that urban areas across Serbia are "swallowed" by nationalist, Nazi, homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic symbols and graffiti that authorities are not cleaning up.
The youth initiative worked to remove about two hundred such graffiti. Some were replaced with others, such as those celebrating scientists.
Rastislav Dinić, deputy of the Green-Left Front and assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, thinks that it is less important if and who paid for the murals about the return of the army to Kosovo. What the message means is more important.
"The mural has three points at the end - how does this fantasy end, what will happen when the army returns to Kosovo? I think it's clear what is implied, what should happen. According to the authors of the mural, it seems to me, the army should return and expel the Albanians from Kosovo," Dinić tells DW.
"That fantasy is horrifying, it's actually a fantasy about genocide, it's a fantasy about a Serbian Gaza," says Dinić, explaining, "that's what this government is telling us, that's what Delije is telling us, that's what Serbia should do."
Tricks from the nineties
Dinić believes that Aleksandar Vučić's government, in moments of "crisis of its legitimacy," is looking for some kind of infusion. And they are finding it in recipes from the 1990s, provoking interethnic tensions.
One example, he adds, is that "criminals" from the previous war are appearing in the camp of government supporters in Belgrade's Pionirski Park.
"The whole of Serbia now serves to serve the apparatus that profited in those years. This protest movement is threatening, for the first time, to seriously dismantle that apparatus," he believes.
As further evidence, he sees the claims that Milan Radoičić, the informal ruler of northern Kosovo and a wanted man, recently appeared in Kosjerić. He allegedly threatened people who oppose the regime in western Serbia. Dinić sees the organized Red Star fans as "an outpost of the regime's parapolice department."
"The people who write graffiti are probably the same people who are at the protests, tattooed, built up, sometimes disguised as police officers, sometimes not, attacking students and rioting citizens."
Dinić also points out that the fight for symbols is ongoing. As he says, the government is no longer the only one who can determine what the Serbian flag means, who is a good Serb and what patriotism is. "One of the biggest victories of this protest is that students and rebellious citizens managed to seize the symbol of the Serbian flag. It is now a symbol of a rebellious democratic Serbia, a symbol of reconciliation between Serbs and Bosniaks."
How do Serbs from Kosovo view the message "When the army returns to Kosovo..."? They have more pressing matters and bigger worries, Serbian Democracy politician Stefan Veljković from North Mitrovica tells DW.
"Our existence and fundamental rights are threatened like never before. No one here thinks that these murals are addressed to them. It is a message to the electorate in Serbia proper, like some false hope that is supposed to awaken the nationalist spirit," he says.
In reality, he adds, Serbs are being "left at the mercy" of Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.
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