Search results

Your search found 13 items
Sort: Relevance | Topics | Title | Author | Publication Year
Home  / Search Results
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2018
Abstract: The article analyses the longstanding ambition of the nationalist elite in Serbia to have the site of the former Nazi concentration camp Sajmište in Belgrade transformed into a ‘Serbian Yad Vashem’, i.e. a memorial to Serbian victims of genocide in the Independent State of Croatia and the suffering of Serbs in the Ustasha-run concentration camp Jasenovac in Croatia. By deconstructing various assumptions about the historical link between Sajmište and Jasenovac which have been used to justify this initiative, the chapter draws attention to the tradition of manipulation of the history of the two camps in Serbia. It also shows that the origins of the contentious interpretation of the history of Sajmište, lie, in part, in the ‘memory wars’ between Serbian and Croatian nationalists who, in the 1990s, skilfully manipulated the history of both Sajmište and Jasenovac, all in the context of mutual accusations of ‘genocidal tendencies’, complicity in the Holocaust and antisemitism. Therefore, debates about Sajmište and its links with Jasenovac should be seen as yet another example of the interdependence between Serbian and Croatian nationalist discourses, which, over the past three decades have resisted attempts to forge a historically grounded culture of remembrance of the victims of the Second World War in Yugoslavia. Also, through the story of the memorialisation of Sajmište, the chapter points to the lasting effect which events of the 1990s have had on historical memory in Serbia, especially in relation to the Holocaust, and other crimes perpetrated in Yugoslavia between 1941 and 1945.
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2011
Abstract: The Semlin concentration camp (also known by its Serbian name Sajmište) was one of the main sites of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Serbia. Established by Nazi Germany in December 1941 on the outskirts of Belgrade, Semlin was one of the first concentration camps in Europe created specifically for the internment of Jews. Between March and May 1942, approximately 7,000 Jewish women, children and the elderly (almost half of the total Jewish population of Nazi-occupied Serbia) were systematically murdered there by the use of a mobile gas van.
In spite of its importance as a site of the Holocaust, for much of the post-war period the Semlin camp occupied a marginal place in Yugoslav/Serbian public memory. Even today, sixty seven years after the liberation of Belgrade, the site where the camp was located, best known by the name Staro sajmište – the Old fairgrounds - stands practically in ruins, awaiting conservation and transformation into a suitable place of remembrance.
The book Staro Sajmište: A site remembered, forgotten, contested - published in the year which marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Semlin concentration camp – offers the first detailed account of the post-war history of this place of the Holocaust. Based on extensive research using both archival sources and secondary literature, the book reveals a whole array of largely unknown details about the post-war history of this locality, and in doing so draws attention to the continuity in the marginalization of Staro Sajmište as a place of the Holocaust. By analyzing Staro Sajmište as a place that has been simultaneously remembered, forgotten and contested, the book makes a significant contribution towards existing debates about Serbian society’s attitude towards the past, especially towards the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2002
Abstract: The thesis examines Serbian conspiracy culture at the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. During the war, conspiratorial themes became a regular occurrence in Serbian mainstream media, as well as in pronouncements by the Serbian political establishment. For the most part, conspiratorial explanations focused on the machinations of transnational elite organisations such as the Bilderberg group or, more generally, on the conspiracy of 'the West'. However, conspiratorial accounts of the war occasionally invoked themes which were previously deemed to be beyond the boundaries of acceptable opinion, such as the allusion to a Jewish conspiracy or to the esoteric and occult aspects of the alleged plot. The thesis outlines the history of conspiracy theories in Serbia and critically reviews psychological approaches to understanding the nature of conspiracy theories. It suggests that the study of conspiratorial discourse requires the exploration of the rhetorical and argumentative structure of specific conspiratorial explanations, while paying special attention to the historical and ideological context within which these explanations are situated. The thesis is largely based upon the examination of the coverage of the war in the Serbian press. Recorded conversations with two well-known Serbian conspiracy theorists are also analysed. The study suggest that conspiratorial interpretations of the war drew upon a longstanding conspiracy tradition of explanation which has a strong anti-semitic legacy and is rooted in right-wing Christian ideology. Analytic chapters explore the discursive and ideological dynamics by which the anti-semitic and mystical aspects of the conspiracy tradition emerged briefly in Serbian mainstream media and political discourse. The thesis concludes by examining the status of conspiracy theories in Serbia in the aftermath of the political changes in October 2000.
Date: 2001
Abstract: Byford and Billig examine the emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in the Yugoslav media during the war with NATO. The analysis focuses mainly on Politika, a mainstream daily newspaper without a history of antisemitism. During the war, there was a proliferation of conspiratorial explanations of western policies both in the mainstream Serbian media and in statements by the Yugoslav political establishment. For the most part such conspiracy theories were not overtly antisemitic, but rather focused on the alleged aims of organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. However, these conspiracy theories were not created de novo; writers in the Yugoslav media were drawing on an established tradition of conspiratorial explanations. The tradition has a strong antisemitic component that seems to have affected some of the Yugoslav writings. Byford and Billig analyse antisemitic themes in the book The Trilateral by Smilja Avramov and in a series of articles published in Politika. They suggest that the proliferation of conspiracy theories during the war led to a shifting of the boundary between acceptable and non-acceptable political explanations, with the result that formerly unacceptable antisemitic themes became respectable. This can be seen in the writings of Nikolaj Velimirovic, the Serbian bishop whose mystical antisemitic ideas had previously been beyond the bounds of political respectability. During the war, his ideas found a wider audience, indicating a weakening of political constraints against such notions.
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2003
Abstract: This paper proposes that understanding the causes of anti-Semitic hate crime requires the
recognition of the cultural specificity of anti-Semitism, reflected in its unique mythical and
conspiratorial nature. By neglecting to consider the idiosyncrasies of anti-Semitic rhetoric,
general theories of hate crime often fail to provide an adequate explanation for the
persistence of anti-Jewish violence, especially in cultures where Jews do not constitute a
conspicuous minority, or where there is no noticeable tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment.
This point is illustrated using as an example the emergence of anti-Semitic hate crime in
Serbia in the aftermath of political changes in October 2000. The paper explores this
development in the context of Serbia’s recent past, arguing that the onset of violent
incidents towards Jews entailed two distinct but related stages, both of which are linked to
the conspiratorial nature of anti-Semitic ideology. The first phase – which culminated at
the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia – involved the proliferation of the belief in
Jewish conspiracy. At this stage, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which were to be found
even in the mainstream media, retained an ‘abstract’ quality and their proliferation did
not, in itself, lead to anti-Jewish hate crime. The onset of anti-Semitic violence is
associated with the second phase, which followed Milošević’s downfall, when, with the
marginalisation of conspiratorial culture, the belief in Jewish conspiracy, as an abstract
ideological position, became reified and transformed into concrete instances of violence
against the local Jewish population. In exploring this two-stage process, the paper
highlights the way in which a closer examination of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and
other anti-Semitic texts can help shed some light on the dynamic underpinning the
persistence of anti-Jewish hate crime in modern society.
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2008
Abstract: Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović (1881–1956) is arguably one the most controversial figures in contemporary Serbian national culture. Having been vilified by the former Yugoslav Communist authorities as a fascist and an antisemite, this Orthodox Christian thinker has over the past two decades come to be regarded in Serbian society as the most important religious person since medieval times and an embodiment of the authentic Serbian national spirit. Velimirović was formally canonised by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2003. In this book, Jovan Byford charts the posthumous transformation of Velimirović from 'traitor' to 'saint' and examines the dynamics of repression and denial that were used to divert public attention from the controversies surrounding the bishop's life, the most important of which is his antisemitism. Byford offers the first detailed examination of the way in which an Eastern Orthodox Church manages controversy surrounding the presence of antisemitism within its ranks and he considers the implications of the continuing reverence of Nikolaj Velimirović for the persistence of antisemitism in Serbian Orthodox culture and in Serbian society as a whole. This book is based on a detailed examination of the changing representation of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović in the Serbian media and in commemorative discourse devoted to him. The book also makes extensive use of exclusive interviews with a number of Serbian public figures who have been actively involved in the bishop’s rehabilitation over the past two decades.