Backgrounds

For a place that was embroiled in conflict over identity only 25 years ago, Serbia has a long history of different cultures. Although I learned this throughout the weeks while being here, I didn’t fully understand all of the different influences until I walked through The National Museum of Serbia. Walking through all of the different exhibits, I saw just how many different cultures and influences were prevalent through the years from Romans, Ottomans, to even Dutch and French culture. The museum was set up so you started on the first floor in the prehistoric era with spear heads and bones, and then you worked your way upstairs going through different eras of monarchies and government types. It was interesting to see how certain cultures and symbols followed throughout eras. For example, Roman symbols could be found from Roman times all the way to military metals in Ottoman times. Most interestingly, there was a whole section of Serbian art that was visibly inspired by French and Dutch art. When I saw the sign for this section of “Serbian art,” the last thing I expected was to find impressionist-style paintings and greek-style sculptures.

After walking through the museum, I was reminded again of this melting pot of cultures when a march walked by the restaurant we were eating at. Although I don’t understand exactly what the march was for, people were walking with dozens of different flags. I saw a man with a Mexican flag draped around his shoulders, a group of people waving Chinese flags, and many more flags that I didn’t know. Many times throughout this trip I couldn’t help but be pessimistic about the future of Serbia. Seeing the nationalists in the Republika Srpska, seeing the pro-Russian nationalists, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I can’t help but relate these groups back to the nationalist groups that were in the beginning of The Death of Yugoslavia. But after what I witnessed yesterday at the museum and after, I have this weird glimmer of hope that Serbia will recognize its past mix of cultures and its current one and not go down this path of growing nationalism that we are seeing all around the world.