photo_2022-08-03_13-29-13Conservative parties, the right, should not be equated with fascism, there are clear differences in ideology. Serbian action, Carostavnik and Zentropa are, however, organizations where the line of demarcation with fascism has long been erased.
The facade of a building near the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Belgrade's Dorćol is decorated with a mural dedicated to a Serbian volunteer who died fighting on the side of the Russian separatist brigade "Prizrak" in Ukraine - this is Stefan Dimitrijević, who is close to the extreme right-wing group "Serbian Action - Feat and Struggle". However, he is not the only one of their members who has been fighting on the "eastern" front since the beginning of the conflict in 2014.
Serbian action has existed since 2010, and its official ideology is: messianic role in Serbian society, anti-Europeanism, return to imaginary tradition, leader cult, anti-liberalism and anti-communism, as well as extreme nationalism - it is openly fascist, without any attempts to repackage it into more acceptable forms .
Stefan Simić, a longtime member of this organization, but also one of the leaders of its "Student Actions" subgroup, is also on the Ukrainian battlefield. In addition to him, Stefan Hadži Antonović, also a member of Serbian Action, is fighting on the Russian side. Simić was also close to the National Serbian Front (NSF).
Nationalist Socialists
The NSF still officially exists, but is almost inactive. This organization more or less disintegrated when a group of members separated from it and founded the Serbian branch "Zentrope". Neither the Zentropists, nor the members of the Action, have a great opinion about the remains of the NSF.
Zentropists describe themselves as "nationalist socialists" who fight against communism, liberalism, atheism, democracy, LGBT people, and Judaism for the sake of reviving the Serbian nation. Although there is no clear hierarchy, one of the more prominent members is an extreme right-wing activist with a long tenure - Marko Gajinović, known for attacks on the premises of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights. Zentropa branches also exist in Italy, France, Spain, Ukraine, Portugal, Greece, and Russia.
Anti-Semitic monarchists
In Dalmatinska Street 84, there is a "club" - rather, a confessional of another organization, close to the previous ones. In question is Carostavnik - an anti-Semitic, monarchist organization that inherits the ideas of the revival of the nation, the cult of the leader, as well as the restoration of the Christian monarchy, and periodically organizes events attended by various domestic and foreign advocates of fascist ideas.
You can help the club by buying badges with the image of Dimitrije Ljotić. The media are not welcome with them. One of the more prominent members of Carostavnik is Zoran Buljugić, a Slavist and former teacher of the Russian language in a Belgrade high school. As the media reported a few years ago, he was kicked out because instead of Russian, he was teaching students about Ljotić's heritage.
Despite his fascist views, Buljugić is present in certain media. He is often a guest on Balkan info, and occasionally writes for the magazine "Geopolitika".
Mutual cooperation
"Serbian Action", Carostavnik and Serbian Zentropa are closely connected and cooperate with each other. In 2017, when the leaders of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) organized a forum in Serbia, the moderators were Buljugić and Action ideologue Marko Dimitrijević. Also some members of Zentropa are also members of Carostavnik.
In addition to these groups, fascist ideology in Belgrade is also inherited by the Serbian national movement "Zbor", which also cooperated with the NPD, but has not been active lately. There is also the Svetosava association Obraz, which the former street leader of the ultra-right Mladen Obradović registered in 2017 instead of Russian-Serbian friendship. One of their members is also in Ukraine.
National specificities of Serbian fascists
What is it that distinguishes these groups from other right-wingers walking around Belgrade? That their ideas really cannot be separated from the basket that bears fascist characteristics, despite arbitrary use of the term fascism in Serbian society. Today, this term generally does not describe a set of characteristics, but serves to accuse each other, for the sake of criticism, thus relativizing real fascism at the very least.
Miloš Perović, professor of sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, explains that there are two extremes in the use of the label of fascism for the Serbian right. The first, as he says, "pretends to include under fascism those phenomena that do not correspond to the concept of fascism", such as conservatism and everything that is ideologically right, while the second "reduces it exclusively to its original historical manifestation in the period between the two world wars".
As Perović adds, the concepts of the right and fascism "should not be equated", while the differences between the extreme right and fascism are "very small, or non-existent".
Social psychologist Jovan Byford explains that in fascism there are always some ideas such as the revival of the nation, extreme nationalist populist politics, the cult of the leader, the idea that society needs to be saved from some negative influence. Although, as he says, there are many groups or organizations that represent some of such ideas, and "few of them that represent all", it should be borne in mind that all fascisms have their national specificities.
The above-mentioned organizations are distinguished precisely by the national specificities of Serbian fascism. Although they are not active on the streets to the extent they were in the first decade of the 2000s, they have not disappeared - now they just have new channels of communication and inciting hatred.
The text was created as part of the "Radical-right extremism" project of the Balkan Research Reporters Network (BIRN).
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