Serbia first appeared on my radar in the summer of 1991. Red Star Belgrade had just won the European Cup. And my geography teacher, who had been watching the world wake up from history, was ripping up maps of Yugoslavia and lobbing them in the bin. It was all change on the eastern front. The Soviet Union had collapsed the same year, and we were getting new countries every week. Or that's how it felt. But without any friends or relatives in any of these places, the talking heads on News at Ten were not going to divert my adolescent attention away from the obvious and onto ethnic beef in the Balkans.
Oblivious to me, tensions in the region rumbled on for the rest of the decade. It all came to a head in 1999 when, for 78 consecutive nights, NATO bombed Belgrade. An act of cruelty that created public resentment towards the West and helped forge the winning mentality of the world's greatest tennis player. Someone I later came to admire for his pro-freedom principles as much as his sporting prowess. I now realise the qualities he expressed in those moments are cherished parts of Serbian culture. Their word inat (pronounced ee-nat) describes it best. No direct translation exists. In English, it is a mix of stubborn defiance and wit that contains a touch of snarky fuck you, prove people wrong attitude.
A national trait formed around the willingness to go against the grain endears me to the Serbian people. It also gives me a lens through which to view their history and actions. When the authorities wanted to inject Djokovic with a drug his body didn't need, Novak stood his ground and sacrificed his tournament chances. When those NATO airstrikes rained down on Belgrade, people responded by holding rooftop parties and painting targets on themselves. At the heavily fought-over Ruzica church, the spirit of inat hangs from the ceiling - they made the chandeliers from First World War bullets. And when the Ukraine War started, Serbia was the only European nation not to impose sanctions on Russia.1
In many ways, Russia and Serbia are natural allies. Politically and culturally. Their Slavic and Orthodox roots give them an affinity that goes back centuries. While their respective turf wars in Ukraine and Kosovo put both countries at odds with NATO - an organisation many people here see as the instigator. I don't claim to know the ins and outs of such matters, but I can observe the propaganda and lack of nuance in the media. Where I come from, Russia and Putin get a bad press. NATO, on the other hand, can do no wrong. In Belgrade, it's different. Spray-painted Z's indicate support for Russia, while the less cryptic "Fuck NATO" needs no decoding. But it's still a welcoming place. Thousands of exiled anti-Putin Russians have moved to the city, which is quite ironic when you consider the pro-Putin souvenirs for sale on the street.
Being in Belgrade had me pondering the country formerly known as Yugoslavia and its dictator-in-chief, Tito. From 1943 until his death in 1980, Josip Broz Tito led a socialist union of six Balkan nations (make that seven if you're Kosovan). After falling out with Stalin in 1948, the Yugo boss walked a precarious tightrope between courting the West and trying not to irritate the Soviets. At the same time, he defied convention and pioneered the non-aligned movement, a forum of countries trying to stay out of the Cold War.
From what I can tell, people remember the old boy quite favourably.2 His more progressive socialist ideology might have something to do with it. From the sixties onwards, American consumer culture was allowed in. Coca-Cola socialism3, as it was known, gave the country an air of openness, and there is a certain amount of nostalgia for those times. But there's another side to the story. You can't run a communist-slash-socialist state without having a secret police to punish those not on board. Yugoslavia had more than their fair share of political prisoners.4
All that was decades ago. Today, Serbia is a democracy. But it still treads the line between East and West. Geopolitical forces like the EU, the US, Russia and China are kept onside or played off against each other. EU membership negotiations are ongoing. Russian energy keeps the lights on, and economic ties with China deepen. Serbian school children see my missus as an opportunity to practice their Mandarin, and the Beijing-funded Belgrade to Budapest train line is under construction.5 But through it all, traditional Balkan values and Serbian patriotism endure.
That is where this essay begins to fade. I arrived in Belgrade with intentions for a photography project. I had a look around, took some pictures and started to write. That's how I work. The writing informs the photography and vice versa. After a while, I either end up with something half-decent or not. For me, Belgrade was a case of not. Photographically, things just didn't click.
So, I did something else. I wrote about this nomadic lifestyle of mine. In doing so, I realised why the concept of inat6 drew me in. It appeals to my contrarian impulse and desire to make my own rules. I see it in the people I admire. And sometimes in myself. But I am also aware of its negative side. The Serbian phrase, Inat je los zanat, calls it an evil craft or a wicked skill because of the harm it can cause in the wrong hands. I'll use it wisely. Art, and often life, favours those with the audacity to take a chance rather than play it safe. In a world that demands conformity, inat might be the antidote.
Open Democracy: Inat by Aleksandra Kovac (2004)
As always, apart from being a well written piece, you have gained a good understanding of the society.
Beautiful piece again, Ben!