German historical revisionism in the Balkans at the turn of the 21st century

“Kosovo Mythos” is, according to him, primarily “a curse, whose danger
comes from the fact that it served as an ideological instrument of a fas-
cist, aggressive, and expansionist political agenda....” The crown jewel
of this introductory part of his presentation, which was supposed to
educate the students of humanist studies at the University of Bonn
about the Serbs and Croats, is his portrayal of the Croatian spiritual
leader of the 1941-1945 Serbocide, Ante Starčević. Pothof claims that
Ante Starčević was not a Greater Croatia ideologue and racist who
severely dehumanized the Serbs and called for their extermination,
but rather that he was the “creator of a nationalist ideology who only
wanted Croatia’s independence from Austria-Hungary and was even
willing to ally himself with the Serbs (...) analysis of his works shows
that he was not referring to a Croatianization of the Southern Slavs,
but a state union between them....”
As a reminder – Alexander Korb redefines Ante Starčević as a “na-
tional-democratic politician inspired by the French Revolution whose
political Party of Rights demanded the assimilation of the Orthodox
Christian population in Croatia” (pg.100).
In this context we are able to see everything that is “new” in Korb’s
dissertation, though not “revolutionary.” He is part of and in the ser-
vice of a German political project, and the only thing that is new is his
skilled and subtle interest-based redefinition of reality and his strong
knowledge of the historical scientific discipline, which set him apart
qualitatively from his colleague Pothof. This promises a successful –
at first glance academic, at a second glance perhaps even political –
future career of the young German scientist Korb. What’s more, I dare
make one (in principle always thankless) prediction, that he will in
the years to come become a member of the “Croatian Academy of the
Sciences and Arts”. His aforementioned predecessor in this project of
independently redefining positive science, Prof. Dr. Wilfred Pothof,
became a member of this highest academic and scientific institution
in Croatia in 2004.
His membership was not hindered by the fact that in my previously
mentioned reply “Critique of Impure Reason” it was irrefutably proven
that he was also a plagiarizer, because 80% of his so-called “academic”
text was – word for word – identical with previously published trea-
tises of his colleague from the University of Gottingen, Prof. Dr. R.
Lauer. Alexander Korb does not make such amateurish mistakes. He
is better than his predecessor in their common political project. Due to
his undeniable efforts, the change of a paradigm in German humanist
social sciences has reached a new level of quality, a whole other level of
independent and virtual reflection of reality. These sciences are rapidly
gaining a common and dominant ideological and political label.
The contribution of the Bosnian Muslim author Smail Balić stands
in the service of the construction of one “indigenous pre-Bosnian
nation”, whose only legitimate descendents today are Bosnian Mus-
lims, and the road to accomplishing that goal goes through the defam-
ation and mass dehumanization of Serbs. His text corresponds with
all of the scientific statements about the after-the-fact reconstruction
(redefinition) of history regarding the foundation of “social contract”
nations, and it aligns in all important aspects with his attempt to con-
struct this “pre-Bosnian nation”. Balić’s “evidence-based approach” is
thus in both form and content extremely problematic and fundamen-
tally incompatible with serious science.
He begins with the basic and unsupported claim that “in Europe...
after the first half of the 12th century, aside from the Western (Roman
Catholic) and Eastern (Orthodox) Christianity, there existed a third
religious constant, a Bosnian Church.” Then, according to him, a large
part of the Bosnian population voluntarily accepted Islam so that this
religious but also political factor (the “Bosnian Church”) remained rel-
evant. His “scientific” evidence-based approach which stipulates the
existence of an indigenous Bosnian nation can be called: “From the
Bosnian Church to the Bosnian Muslim Nation.” He concludes that
“the Serbs only came to Bosnia for the first time between the 16th and
19th centurries, along with the Turks” and therefore the contemporary
Muslim population (previously associated with the Bosnian Church)
in modern Bosnia-Herzegovina constitutes an indigenous “proto-Bos-
nian nation.” When making this claim he ignores not only the oldest
preserved evidence of the Serbian Cyrillic script, the Miroslav Gospel
(a collection of specific selections from all of the Gospels, with a pre-
scribed order of liturgical readings), which was written as early as 1185
for one of the brothers of Stefan Nemanja, Miroslav of Hum, whose
realm was located on the territory of modern Bosnia, but also other
verified historical evidence.

As previously mentioned, these claims are highly problematic:
1. The claim that in Europe from the middle of the 12th century onward
there were three distinct religious groups (Roman Catholic Church,
Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Bosnian Church) cannot be taken
seriously, and it is inaccurate to classify them as being equal in standing
with each other. This assertion is not supported by any reliable historic-
al source. Balić is likely using this claim in order to assert the temporal
existence of the Bogomils in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This, however,
was not any sort of regionally determined and independent “Bosnian”
phenomenon (i.e. Church). The Bogomils were part of a wider Gnostic
Manicheaist religion whose influence spread to varying degrees from
China to the Iberian Peninsula. Manicheaism, an attempt at the uni-
fication of Christian, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian philosophies, was in
its time an influential and important global religious movement in its
own right, but this does not prove the existence of a distinct “Bosnian
religion” or “Bosnian Church” no more than it does the existence of a
“Chinese Religion/Church” or “Iberian Religion/Church.”
2. It is illogical to make an unsupported claim about a connection be-
tween two worldviews (Bogomilism/Manicheaism on the one hand and
Islam on the other), and then conclude that this constitutes evidence
for the historical existence and continuation of a (Bosnian) “proto-
nation.” Religion is one of the essential characteristics of national
identity, but it is certainly not the only characteristic that determines
belonging to a particular nation. The national identity of the Han Chi-
nese does not depend on whether the population practices Buddhism,
Taoism, or whether it primarily follows the Confucian ethical system
of values (or, for that matter, whether the population practiced Mani-
cheaism at one point in history).
3. Finally, it is irresponsible to assert the existence of a distinct
“proto-Bosnian nation” without reference to any reliable historical
sources. We should remember that verified historical sources, such as
the “Franciscan Annals” from the beginning of the 9th century (822 A.D.)
and the documents of Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyro-
genitus (913-959), mention Serbs and Croats as the inhabitants of the
geographical area corresponding to modern Bosnia and Herzegovina,
but there is no mention what so ever of Bosnians or Bosniaks, i.e. of a
“proto-Bosnian nation.” The provincial designation for the geograph-
ical area of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina has since antiquity been
“Dalmatia” and it referred to the territory between the Adriatic Sea and
the Sava and Ibar rivers. Frankish scholar Einhard makes mention of
Croatians (e.g. Ljudevit Posavski), as well as “the Serbian nation, which
rules over large parts of this land (Dalmatia)” (“Sorab, quae dicitur
obtinere NATIO Magnam partem Dalmatiae ...”). Constantine Por-
phyrogenitus is the first to mention the name Bosnia (“Bosona”) as a
territorial designation, and even then it refers to “only the areas sur-
rounding the upper Bosnia river.” He also mentions that in the 9th and
10th century “Serbs held that region of Bosnia in the upper valley of the
Bosnia River, with the city of Salines (Tuzla).” Furthermore, Constan-
tine Jireček stresses that the rulers of this Bosnia in the 10th century
were “loyal to Serbian dukes.”

The same goes for Balić’s claim that the members of this “proto-Bos-
nian nation” were co-rulers of the Ottoman Empire, and that “... with-
in the Ottoman Empire the two highest instruments of state decision-
making were” Turkish Sultans and Bosnian Grand Viziers....” “Bos-
nian” Grand Viziers? The members of a historic “proto-Bosnian, i.e.
Bosniak nation?”
Let us consider the example of Mehmed-pasha Sokolović, the most
famous Balkan-born Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, in order
to establish whether this claim made by Smail Balić and his support-
ers can be scientifically and historically defended (whether it is true).
Likewise, whether this constitutes an arbitrary reconstruction and re-
vision of history (usurping control over definitions, V. Umeljić, 2010),
which is characteristic of “negotiated nations” and their “nationalist
representation of history” which then “becomes the starting point for
further political activities” (G. Elwert, 1989).
Mehmed-pasha Sokolović (1505-1579) was born to a Serbian Ortho-
dox Christian family in the village of Sokolovići, near Rudo, in what
is today Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was baptized in accordance with
the traditions of the Serbian Orthodox Church and was given the
name Bajica. At a very young age he was forcibly taken from his family
by the Turkish authorities as part of a “blood tax”, forced to convert to