Belgrade, Serbia

Handke and Serbia

Published: April 14, 2007

The Austrian author Peter Handke a highly contraversial personality in the european cultural scene, but mostly criticized for his appearance on the funeral of the former yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic, is also known for his positive attitude for the Serbs.
Nowadays, it mostly very “modern” and “rational” to condemn Serbia and the Serbs for the infamous role during the Yugoslav Wars, however, few european intellectuals tried to have an objective approach on the wars, regarding also the serbian side. Handke has made a visit to Serbia in ‘95, at the time when the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was approaching to an end and Serbia was recupurating from the economically devastating years of ‘93-’94. Even though one could distinguish his yugonostalgic attitude in dealing with the communist era of Yugoslavia in his book “A Journey to the Rivers: Justice for Serbia”, in the foreword he severely criticized the western media for the lack of an objective approach and jurnalistic professionalism. When he directed his criticisms on the western intellectuals and their homophonus anti-Serbian parols, he made a remark in his book which I find worthy of quoting it here:

“When I walked through Kalemegdan, I haven’t noticed any of the older people playing chess, or the young couples having a walk, to be war criminals or genocidical persons”

But his conclusion leaves a taste of communist nostalgia, which for my taste is more than absurde.

However, Handke is still active in “lobbying” for Serbia. When the decision came from the city of Nürnberg to award him the large amount of Euros as an award, he redirected the funds to the Serbian enclaves in Kosovo and Metohija, something Biljana Srbaljanovic (his archenemy) wouldn’t even think of, at least as far as I know. But his most recent comment on the preposition of supervisioned independence was that “it doesn’t make any sense, since this means that the one who gets it is not mature enough, that is something completely new”.

My personal opinion of Handke would be that I regard him as well to be a confusing personality, however, in some things I completely agree with him, in some not. Nobody should be lookened upon in an black and white manner. I’m realy interested to know what do you, the readers, think of Handke and the broad approach to the thoughts of people regarding the tragic past of the Balkans during the ‘90s.

For the end I give you a nice quote of Handke with his opinion of the Serbs:

“The Serbs are nation not better nor worse than any other nation”

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