Equal Republika Srpska with whom she goes on stage on the occasion of her birthdays and others holidays, was built according to the model of an ethnic state, a state that is the governing body of a people understood as an ethnic community, on the territory that "belongs" to it. Presenting itself in this way, Republika Srpska remained within the framework of the peace agreement that ended the war in 1995. Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This agreement, as anthropologist Azra Hromadžić says, is based on the "territorialization of ethnicity and the ethnicization of the territory", that is, on the idea that there are only "territorially separated and homogeneous ethnic groups" in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and that everything that deviates from that, "all the heterogeneity of life projects" should simply be forgotten and ignored (A. Hromadžić: Only Bosnia is not there, str. 161). With this, the international community accepted and legalized the ethnic division of Bosnia and Herzegovina. She accepted as the truth, which the war allegedly exposed, that there are no Bosnians in Bosnia, only Serbs, Croats and Muslims.
So, when he says that today Milorad Dodik, and he uses every opportunity to say it - including in almost every speech at the ceremonies that I "saw off" - he does not quote Radovan Karadžić or any other Serbian separatist at the beginning of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the Dayton Agreement. When he says that he is a great admirer of that agreement, you should believe him. Why wouldn't you be? After all, the admirer "Daytona" is Karadzic. In an interview from 2010, he stated that "Dayton Bosnia was never disputed for the Serbs" (R. Karadzic, "Serbs and Muslims are the same people", 21/12/2010).
If he reads political science literature, Dodik knows that the Dayton BiH was designed in accordance with the type of democracy that is called "consociational democracy" in this literature, and he could boast to the representatives of that model that he always thought, worked and sang "no one can do anything to us" as a consociationist, before political scientists came up with this term. And indeed, the model of consociational organization of BiH is based on the alleged historical truth about the old, deep and insurmountable ethnic division of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian society (M. Kasapović, "Methodological problems of criticism of consociational democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina", pp. 136–143) and on the recommendation that this division be recognized and that the division of territory and power in the joint state be based on it.
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The ceremonial birthday and other appropriate mise-en-scenes of the Republic of Srpska are based on consociational respect for "reality", on this "realism", far from any thought that one can get out of one's ethnic skin. There is nothing artificial, nothing ideological, nothing foreign, nothing liberal in our country, there are no citizens, there is only the people, the Serbian people. And there is no philosophy here, but there is life, there is living truth that speaks from the heart and soul of the people, and makes known "what is is is", as the president of Srpska, Milorad Dodik, likes to say, presenting this supposedly popular truth in the supposedly popular language.
As if he wanted to testify in support of Mirjana Kasapović's opinion that the ethnic division in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the truth, and everything else is a lie and an act, Dodik admitted in a speech at the official reception in Belgrade on February 28, 2024 that ten years ago he and other leaders of the RS had to "fake other political values and renounce what is natural, which is the alliance of the Serbian people of the Republic of Serbia and the Republika Srpska as two states of the Serbian people".
photo: strahinja aćimović / tanjugIT WAS LIKE THIS: Former President of the RS Milorad Dodik
"REPUBLIC CREATED BY GOD"
Republika Srpska attributes the consociational view of Bosnia and Herzegovina to God himself. She is supposedly God's creation, God created her the way she is, happily ethnically demarcated. That's what she often says - that is, that's what her songs, speeches, pictures and other media say through which she addresses the audience. Its president Dodik repeats that. "Republika Srpska was created by God", are his words. In the belief that Serbia is God's creation, the leading patriarch Porfiria also stands out, which could be expected from him.
But in popularizing this belief, he is being overtaken, if not surpassed, by secular figures. For example, it was not the patriarch, but the actor Slobodan Ćustić who described the divine becoming of the Republic of Srpska in biblical language: "And God said, and the Republic of Srpska would be." It was not the patriarch who said "Life without Christ, pure stupidity", but Ćustić's colleague Nikola Pejaković. He calls on God to protect Serbia, his work, in the solemn songs of Dodik's "court composer" Mladen Matović, and the slogans on the banners displayed during the parade in Banja Luka say that God protects Dodik himself. In general, expectations from God are high here, so it is no wonder that in RS the exchange of greetings "God help" and "God help you" has become official.
In the speech about Srpska as God's creation, politicians stand out, those I had the opportunity to see and hear at ceremonies in honor of the RS in Banja Luka and Belgrade. They point out that they are believers of the SPC and that Serbia is dear to them precisely because it is God's work. In this way, they transfer their support for the policy of the government of this entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, that is, Milorad Dodik, from the sphere of banal political and party interests to the sphere of spiritual work, spiritual zeal. They say: God and the Church are with you, that's why we are too.
For example, Miloš Vučević, at the ceremonial academy in honor of the birthday of the Republic of Srpska on January 8, 2025, that is, at the time when he was the president of the Serbian government, presented himself as a great believer of the Serbian Orthodox Church. He mentioned the "spirit of holiness", even "theodulia", showing that he is close to the theology of Nikolaj Velimirović. As my reader already knows, he then told that he was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and visited the tomb of St. Stephen, and then called on the Serbs to be a pillar of peace in the Balkans, which they will be if they are "united and deified." The Republika Srpska, explained Vucevic, was created by "heavenly justice", its foundations are the same as the foundations of the Christian Church - the blood of martyrs, with the difference, which Vucevic does not consider important, that the martyrs in the foundations of the Republika Srpska are not martyrs who sacrificed themselves for faith and God, but victims and heroes who fell in the fight for the Serbian people and the state in Bosnia.
ETHNICIZATION OF RELIGION
If God created this entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina and put it at the disposal of the Serbian people, then it is not strange that this people is made up of believers of one of his churches, the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is where being a Serb and being a believer of the SPC is the same. This is not explained at the ceremonies in honor of Republika Srpska, it is taken for granted. "Our people", "Serbian people" and "faithful people" are synonyms here. There are no Serbs who are not Orthodox believers here, not because they are excluded, but because they do not exist in the imaginary of ethnopolitics. This also applies to the citizens of Srpska who are not "from the ranks of the Serbian people", there are no unbelievers among them either, but only unbelievers. Srpska does not know what to do with a Bosniak who is not Muslim and a Croat who is not Catholic, just as she does not know what to do with a Serb who is not Orthodox, she cannot even imagine them, and that is why they are not present in the ceremonial productions where she is presented.
However, this is not about reducing ethnicity to religion. On the contrary, in speeches, songs and stories about God and the people at ceremonies in honor of the RS, religious affiliation is derived from ethnicity, as a form of expression of ethnicity. Here the SPC is an "ethnic church" (AD Smith, Ethnic origin of nations, 196-197). That this is about that, about such a Church, about such a relationship, in which religion is reduced to ethnicity, is evidenced by the fact that Patriarch Porfirius likes to use a term from the contemporary political dictionary, the term "identity". He comes to him when he talks about the fact that the Serbian people and the Serbian Church are the same. Porphyry often adds "identity" to the usual formulas used in the Serbian Orthodox Church to say this, such as "one faith, one nation" or "one family, one body, one faith", sometimes he puts it at the beginning of the formula, and then it reads "one identity, one body, one nation".
Perhaps the Patriarch just wants to enrich the theological vocabulary with a modern term, to bring the old thought about the unity of the Serbian Church and the Serbian people closer to the young believers, who are familiar with this term. However, "one identity" does not mean what "one body" or "one family" means in the dictionary of the Christian Church, when the Church wants to say that it is the same as the faithful people. It comes from another dictionary, from the dictionary of modern nationalism, and where it appears, the terms "body", "faith", "nation" and "family" fall under its authority and move from Christianity to nationalism, whose other name, which it has received in recent times, is identitarianism.
In the Serbian language, "identity" is a code, a passport for access to the "Serbian world", the all-Serbian assembly where politicians in power and representatives of the social and cultural elite close to them gather. Sometimes I think I hear them greeting each other with "Resurrected Identity" and "Resurrected Truth". In that company, Porfirije will also meet Vladimir Orlić, one of the politicians from the top of Vučić's Serbia. He will hear from him at a ceremony in honor of Srpska that Orthodoxy in Serbia and Srpska, as well as the Serbian language and culture, are manifestations of national identity. In it, in that identity - Orlić said, I wrote it down, and now I quote it again - "our language, our faith, our culture, and our commitment to our Church come together". In other words, unlike Porphyry, who says that Serbian national identity is one of the ways of belonging to the Church: "In the Church we are one body, one family, one faith, one nation and one identity", Orlić knows that things are different, that in fact belonging to the Church - at least when it comes to the SPC - is one of the ways in which Serbian identity is expressed. What would Crnjanski say: Identity is being built by the Vidovdan temple.
The fact that in the frequent references to God, the Church, saints and their relics at ceremonies in honor of the RS, religious affiliation is subordinated to ethno-national identity is also evidenced by the fact that here some words and expressions characteristic of the religious language came under its authority, for example, the word "covenant". How to understand Željka Cvijanović when he says that Republika Srpska is a "covenant community" or Miloš Vučević's statement that the Constitution of Srpska is a "covenant charter" or Dodik's compliment to Vučić that he is "a man in a covenantal relationship with the people"? It would not be said that the choice of this vocabulary meant to suggest that what the Republika Srpska, its Constitution and its great friend, the President of Serbia mean and represent, are based on religious, Orthodox foundations. On the other hand, the motive that prompted the aforementioned politicians to use the word "covenant" and the term "covenant relationship" I would not reduce to the desire to beautify and ennoble what they are talking about, that is, the one they are talking about, but to leave them where they are, in the world of politics. "Covenant" moves them from there and elevates them to a higher level of nationally valuable work, which is the construction and defense of the Serbian national identity.
If there is still politics there, then it is a kind of over-politics, which is more of a secular religion than politics, because it promises the same thing as many religions, peace on earth and kingdom in heaven. That peace and that kingdom are not what Christianity promises to its believers, who reach peace and heaven if they free themselves from all earthly limitations, collective affiliations and ties, that is, without national passports and ethnic identities. On the contrary, the peace and heavenly kingdom offered by the priests of the Serbian national identity - including those I listened to at the ceremonies in honor of the Republika Srpska - are reserved only for the Serbian people, if they nationally unite and finally separate themselves from others. This is the only way they will deserve heaven, that is, a kind of heavenly all-Serbian council or heavenly Serbian world.
So, at the festivities in honor of the Republic of Srpska, the SPC had the task of celebrating the symbols and myths of Serbian ethno-nationalism, to make available and subjugate its holy places to them, a task that it accepted - I got the impression - joyfully and gratefully.
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photo: tanjug / srnaPrime Minister of the RS Savo Minic, festive parade on January 9, 2026.
RELICS AND SOLDIERS
At the reception on the occasion of the Republika Srpska's birthday, held in Belgrade on February 28, 2024, Patriarch Porfirije gave a real little lecture on the statehood of the Serbian people, in which he explained that Serbian statehood survives on the "relics of the saints" and on "holiness". The saints whose relics we are talking about here are Saint Simeon and his sons Saint Sava and Saint Stefan the First Crowned, that is, Nemanja and Nemanjići, Sava and Stefan. The event that, according to Porfiry, was crucial for the formation of Serbian statehood, took place in the Studenica monastery in 1207, and another of Nemanja's sons, Vukan, took part in it, the only one who would not become a saint. He and Stefan had quarreled, but they reconciled that day in Studenica thanks to Sava, who persuaded these two to stop fighting and embrace and kiss each other. Therefore, the future saints of the Serbian Orthodox Church participated in this, as well as a layman. If he also built himself into the "eternal foundations of the Serbian state", as Porphyry says, then in those foundations there are not only holy relics, but also the work of a layman.
The role of relics in Porphyry's interpretation of Serbian statehood remains unclear. It cannot be seen how it differs from the role of graves and monuments of civilian victims of war and fallen fighters for the Serbian people and country, which in Serbian national mythology also form the symbolic foundations of Serbian statehood, and thus the statehood and "identity" of the Republika Srpska. However, the role of one extremely valued value in Serbian political mythology - Serbian harmony - is quite clear here. If Porphyry is to be believed, the statehood of the Serbian people was born when Sava and his brothers reconciled, when harmony reigned between them. In this he sees an instructive example, "a saving guide for the people who lead the country", that is, for Vučić and for Dodik, the pretender to the position of the first head of the independent Serbian state in Bosnia. The example that Porphyry offers them is instructive because it shows, first of all, that Serbs can agree and reconcile and, secondly, that harmony and peace are not only a spiritual, Christian value, but the main condition for building a state: move towards peace in the name of God and you will get a state. In fact, spiritual peace and unity realized through faith in God show their true value only when they are in the service of national harmony and peace in the state.
This lesson, this road map, was received from the SPC and Porfiri by the Serbian students who, after the accident at the train station in Novi Sad on November 1, 2024, stood up against the corrupt government responsible for that accident, which turned into a civil rebellion against the Vučić regime that continues even now as I write these lines. The students could also hear the story of how Sava's brothers happily reconciled and thus once and for all, that is, for eternity, laid the foundations of Serbian statehood, which is a great, if not the greatest, contribution of the Serbian Church to its faithful people.
A version of this story intended for students appeared in the SPC's Christmas Message of January 7, 2025, this time as "an instructive fact for the year ahead", which now does not talk about how the Serbian state was created, but about how to preserve it. The students, in the name of Saint Sava and his happily reconciled brothers, are invited to make peace with the Serb brothers in power and not destroy the state. They were told: "Let's give up aggression and violence as a way of solving problems and disagreements", and they were advised to give their discontent a religious, Orthodox motive, that is, to stick to the fact that "Christ is the meaning of everything and that, if Christ is in the first place, everything will fall into place". That the call to students to give up rebellion against the government is the main message of this letter was also understood by the editors of "Politika", so they published the text of the letter under the title "Aggression and violence are not a way to resolve disagreements" ("Politika", January 6, 7 and 8, 2025).
In this "father's advice" to the students to stop protesting against the government for Christ's sake, another piece of advice is hidden, the advice to get rid of the influence of the West, because it allegedly encourages them to a non-Christian and anti-Serb "color revolution". Students and other citizens of Serbia will receive this advice in an explicit form, and in a Russian translation, from the SPC, that is, from the Patriarch, a few months later, on April 23, 2025, when he and Bishop Irinej (Bulović) in Moscow will tell Putin and their colleague Patriarch Kirill, that a "colored revolution" is happening in Serbia.
If they renounce the West and show that they are loyal to Orthodox Serbia, the Serbian Orthodox Church promises the students that they will have an important role in the state, the one that Sava had in his young, student days in Nemanja's state, when he "became a role model and example for everyone, including his own father." Our task, it is said in this Christmas message, is to - like Nemanja once upon a time - "listen to the youth, to respect, protect and empower them in everything that is good and virtuous". And, as is known, there were younger and older people in Serbia who introduced themselves as students, greeted these wise and patriotic words of the Serbian Orthodox Church and told their brothers in power in the country, "We are students who want to learn", which the brothers happily greeted.
(Abridged version of the ninth chapter of Ivan Čolović's book On the birthday of the Republic of Serbia. Notes from an uninvited guest(20th century, 2025)
